


this, alone

by evanescent_jasmine



Series: when the sunlight dies [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Body Horror, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Hill Top Road Weirdness, Canon-Typical Worms, Dimension-Hopping, Gen, Judicious use of a corkscrew, Psychological Trauma, Season 5 Spoilers, Struggling against the Lonely, Time Travel, because I'm going to be jossed immediately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evanescent_jasmine/pseuds/evanescent_jasmine
Summary: The way home is gone.There should be a rift in front of him, a hole torn through the wall in Hill Top Road and reality itself, leading back to his world. Instead, only unfinished brick, and Martin is left stranded on the wrong side, in the wrong world, with the wrong Jon. The only way forward is to live as the wrong Martin, taking over the space left open by his counterpart's death until he can figure out how to get back.And maybe stop the apocalypse while he's at it.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & the OG Archival Team
Series: when the sunlight dies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719928
Comments: 191
Kudos: 347





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for a description of death-by-worms.

Martin hadn’t thought he would remember enough to give this statement. He got a fairly unwelcome refresher on some of it this morning—the crunch-burst of a worm under his shoe, that damp, musty stench, the panic when one of them jumped at his _face_ , Christ, he’d forgotten how far they could jump, and if he hadn’t panicked and drew the Lonely over himself then...

But the rest? It’s been years. He’d prepared a quick story on the way to the Institute, holding onto the big, important details of Vittery, basement, Prentiss, phone, two weeks, and filling the gaps in with fluff. All of which is moot when he sits in front of a painfully young Jon, sat hunched and swallowed by his overlarge desk, and hears the click of the recorder. 

The first time Martin gave this statement, he’d been rehearsing it in his flat beforehand, a mantra to keep his mind off of the _knock-knock-knock_ as a promise that he _would_ get out of it, _would_ tell this to Jon. And he did, and assumed that was why it was so easy to recount the details.

Now he knows better. A gentle barely-there tug and it all comes tumbling out of him, sharp and clear, and all he can think is _oh, Jon, did it really start that early?_

“Please stick to the statement, Martin,” Jon says. His mouth does that twisty thing, that unimpressed _try to focus for five seconds, will you_ , and Martin almost wants to laugh for how achingly familiar it is. And that he can see through it, now. Was it the digression, or the fact it was a digression about spiders?

His Jon hasn’t done the twisty thing in a while. His Jon is all wobbly smiles and deep frowns and, when he thinks Martin can’t see, blank stares. 

This Jon, though, is still so young. What, twenty-eight, twenty-nine? The grey at his temples might’ve said otherwise but even that’s barely anything, compared to his Jon. And for all he’s sharp as anything in his suit, has that up-tilt to his chin like he belongs and knows it, he’s so, so small in this office. Martin can’t tell if this office is just larger or if he’d never noticed because he’d always had bigger concerns whenever he stepped into it. 

What he knows for sure is that this Jon’s hair is neatly combed like it used to be before everything went to shit, and although that one strand that always fell stubbornly over his forehead is still the same, the part is on the wrong side. His glasses are wrong too, large and round where his Jon’s had always been slim, rectangular, but the bump on the bridge of his nose is the same, that little furrow of concentration (concern?) between his eyebrows is the same, even the way he fiddles with the strap of his wristwatch, though the watch itself is different.

In every way that matters, this is Jonathan Sims, and he’s going to have to go through all of this alone and the thought _hurts._

Martin describes the process of sealing his flat—every towel, sock, bit of fabric scrap he could find stuffed under the door, around the windows, every crack and gap—and can’t help wondering where Other Martin went wrong. Other Martin’s flat isn’t his flat. Same area but two streets off, Jon had warned, had given Martin the address, but he must not have Known this bit. Had there been a crack Other Martin missed? Had they gotten through the pipes? 

Or had he not woken up in time? 

Had he shuffled to the door, half-asleep, not noticed the smell or that all-encompassing feeling of _wrong_ and _no_? Had he opened it? Or had they not bothered with the knocking? 

“-artin? _Martin_.”

Other Martin on the floor, face-down, looked like he’d been trying to crawl into his bedroom when—

The touch to his shoulder makes him start. But it’s just Jon. Too young, too sharp, but Jon. Martin blinks away the image, takes a deep breath.

Right. The statement. Then he could go home to _his_ Jon.

“Finally, I woke up this morning and she - she was just gone. She brought this musty smell with her, and this morning I - I couldn’t smell it. And there was no knocking,” Martin says. No knocking, no warning, just _worms_ , and Other Martin never stood a chance. “I waited a bit just in case, listening at the door, but there was no one there. And I ran… all the way here.”

Statement over, nothing more to tug out of his mouth, and Martin finds himself sagging a little against the chair. 

“And you’re sure about this, Martin?”

Martin remembers this bit, remembers his exasperation at the question drowned by his desperation at finally, _finally_ seeing someone else, being out of there. And the fear of not being believed, what that _meant_ , when he’d been so careful to bring back proof. What he’d said then was, “I like my job,” and he remembers it because, Christ, he’d beaten himself up about it enough. That _that_ ’ _s_ the proof he gave. He’d thought of better lines since, in the quiet of document storage.

He says none of them now. What he says instead is, “No, Jon, I’m not entirely sure whether the worms wanted to eat me. Maybe they just wanted to invite me over for a friendly chat. Why don’t you open that jar I brought you and let them out, see what they have to say?”

“That isn’t what I—”

“Or maybe I hallucinated it? Maybe it was a - a bad infestation that I carried home with me somehow, perfectly rational explanation for everything, right? Just because I _felt_ like there was something wrong and the—the smell, the knock. Knock. Knock.” _Knock knock,_ he can hear it right now, feel a phantom itch clambering up his legs. He curls his hands into fists on his knees, resisting the urge to check. “You think I didn’t wonder that myself? Two weeks with just my thoughts, I promise you I went over every possible angle, Jon. Because - because why didn’t my neighbours notice, right? Or you? Well, not you, I figured you’d just think I’d gone skiving but _Tim_ at least, or—” 

He chokes on Sasha’s name, but Jon saves him from having to push past it with a sharp, “ _Alright._ ”

Then Jon grimaces, seeming to notice how forceful that came out. He clears his throat and says it again, more evenly this time, “Alright. I believe you. There's a room in the Archives I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now. I'll talk to Elias about whether we can get extra security, but the Archives have enough locks for now. It's also supposed to be humidity controlled and, though it hasn't been working for some time, it does mean it's well-sealed. Nothing will be—Martin?”

Martin remembers this too. The confusion, the relief, Jon _believing_ him and offering a way to keep safe and. 

Meanwhile, Other Martin, dead, alone in his flat, and not a soul noticed.

Saves him a hell of a lot of fear and heartache, mind, and at least he died with life still a bit simple. Christ, what Martin wouldn’t give to have the scariest thing he was up against be _worms_ …

He laughs, once, can’t help it. It bubbles out before he can clap a hand over his mouth, but then when he does _that_ he notices the crying and well. That’s just par for the course, isn’t it? Doesn’t even know why he’s crying. For his other self, scared and alone? For the relief that it hadn’t been him? The guilt at the relief? 

Whatever it is behind the crying bit, the look on Jon’s face definitely isn’t helping with the laughing bit. His eyes are wide, glancing at every possible direction except Martin. His upper lip is curling in the beginnings of a grimace, and he’s even begun to angle his shoulders away. But he keeps his hands curled together, which Martin _knows_ is to stop them from fluttering with nerves or reaching or touching so there’s that, at least. 

Martin swallows it down. Ducks his head to wipe at his eyes with his sleeves. “Sorry, Jon. I...honestly, I didn’t think you’d believe me?” Relief, then. They’ll go with relief. It fits better with the script. “Or to take it seriously. Even if you did believe me.”

Then Jon has to go and let out the softest, “Oh,” only to clear his throat and set his shoulders back and Martin can practically see him packing away that surprise or empathy or whatever had peeked out for a moment there. 

It’s been all of a day in this world, less than that, even, but _god_ , he misses his Jon. 

He consoles himself that he doesn’t have to wait long. Just has to stash these tapes somewhere this Jon will hopefully find them soon and wait in document storage until he can sneak back out and head home. He feels almost bad at the relief the idea brings him. Home is an apocalypse hellscape, after all, and there’s no guarantee this Jon will be able to put everything together in time, especially without…

But when he gets home, maybe his Jon can find a way. Can tug on whatever threads he used to send Martin here to maybe catch this world a little earlier, catch Other Martin _before_ the worms, make it so all of this isn’t necessary and Martin can come through here again and meet his doppelganger and have tea and have it all be fine. 

Either way, Martin has done what he can, and that’s just going to have to be good enough. 

*

The house on Hill Top Road is...well, on their side it’s as spooky as a house can get without being (he thinks. Hopes?) sentient. Here it’s just a house. No one currently living in it, thankfully, but it still looks well-maintained and ready for show except for the bit of dust. His footprints are still there from when he came through earlier this morning but no other signs of passage. Martin sweeps the torchlight around to make sure, pauses at the few cobwebs in the corners. But they don’t seem any more concentrated than one would expect for an abandoned house, certainly not the concentration he and Jon have sometimes seen when the Web is centred somewhere...so he moves on, down the basement stairs again.

“It’s been...a very strange day, Jon,” Martin says. He has his torch focused on the steps beneath him, in case there’s something in the dark or something on a step—how embarrassing would it be to survive the apocalypse this far only to trip and break his neck—but the answering silence makes him stop. Lift the light to the wall at the far-end of the basement. 

It’s unfinished brick, same as it was on their side, and there are no holes in it. 

There should be a hole in it. One big dimension-hopping hole into the apocalypse, even one without Jon waiting on the other side. Jon barely had the edges of this time and space nonsense as it was, and he’d said closing the hole was an ordeal in itself, so it should have been open for as long as Martin needed it to be, waiting to pull him back home.

Jon had promised.

Martin takes a moment to swallow the panic in his throat, turns the torch to light the stairs again, and finishes making his way down. 

Alright, think. They had expected that it might take a day or two for Martin to convince his other self—not thinking about him, _not_ thinking about him—and had planned accordingly, so it isn’t that Martin's too late. Either Jon had to close it to keep something else from going through, or...maybe it wasn’t Jon who closed it. Maybe it was the Web or Spiral or whichever power was in charge of cross-dimensional doors that decided not to play nice anymore, and Jon hadn’t had the chance to open it again.

If the former, Jon would leave something to let him know, and in both cases the solution would be to wait. Martin feels his way across the brick wall just in case, knows the truth when his foot hits something that clatters a little bit away. The sinking certainty doesn’t quite stop him from examining the rest of the wall. No gaps, no holes, nothing else waiting for him. Only then does Martin pick up the tape recorder he’d kicked earlier. Because what else would Jon leave. 

It isn’t running, which is a relief most times. But it means Jon isn’t here. Isn’t near. Won’t be near anytime soon. 

Martin settles onto the ground, back against the solid wall. He takes a moment to steel himself, takes a deep breath, then turns it on. For a few moments there is just the whirring of the tape. Then, a shaky sigh. Jon’s breathy, “I - I’m sorry. Martin. I’m—” is as far as he can listen before he clicks it off again.

It’s difficult to decide how he feels. If he feels. So, after an indeterminate amount of time staring at the dark without it staring back, Martin decides it can wait. He packs the tape recorder away with the tapes he had been supposed to deliver to Other Martin, who is dead. Who Jon had Known lived at a different address, and so maybe Jon had also Known he was dead even before he sent Martin through? 

Martin gets up from the ground. He leaves the house on Hill Top Road. He barely remembers how he got on the train back to London but by the time it arrives, he at least has his next steps.

If he’s going to live Other Martin’s life, he needs to deal with what’s left of it.

*

This time, when Martin shoulders the door open, Other Martin's flat is blessedly empty. It smells of sweet and damp even through the cloth Martin tied around his face, and the surfaces are covered with a sheen that makes him keep his hands in his pockets, but there are no worms underfoot. Even the dead ones, the ones he crushed last time, have been cleared out. He imagines Jane Prentiss sweeping them up. Imagines maybe the live worms eating the dead ones. Has to swallow down the bile. 

Of course, then he spots Other Martin, and there's no use trying to swallow anything down. 

Martin makes it to the kitchen sink, just about, and grants himself the time to vomit. Those early morning sandwiches on the train to Oxford had felt like an unbearable luxury at the time, as had the tea and actual milk, so this seems about par for the course. Why should he get to enjoy anything? So Martin grants himself a few minutes for self-pity too. 

Then he splashes water on his face, rinses out his mouth, and washes his hands for good measure before drawing himself upright. The kitchen as a whole seems to have escaped the worms' attention, nothing but Other Martin's detritus here, mugs that haven't been rinsed and binned cans and frozen dinner. Other Martin has washing up gloves by the sink—he never did, seemed an unnecessary added expense when his own hands did just fine—and, after careful inspection, he pulls the marigolds on. Won't do a thing against worms but better than bare skin. 

It would be too suspicious if he went out and bought some gasoline right before and he can't trust that just lighting various things on fire will be enough to set his flat on fire, so burning the Corruption isn’t the way to go this time. Not to mention the danger to the other residents in the building. 

Even if they hadn’t noticed the shambling Flesh Hive terrorising him. These things weren’t logical, after all, and nobody else had noticed either, so why should he expect it from neighbours. 

Burial will have to do. He can ask that his flat be purified or something, but the body…

Usually, the ground would have swallowed up anything that stayed still long enough, back in the other world. This isn’t the first time he’s seen a dead body, mind, plenty of those to go around in the apocalypse, but definitely the first time he’s had to manage one himself. Let alone the fact it’s his own. The more he looks down at it, though, the less he feels. Helps that there isn’t anything left in his stomach to bring up, but the holes also make it easier to pretend he doesn’t recognise the body. Martin nudges the face with his foot so it’s holey-side up. Just a body. He can handle that.

Transporting it will be the issue. That’s the problem with not being in an apocalypse anymore: there are laws now, and people that will notice. Could chop him up, but Martin certainly never owned knives that would’ve been good enough and he doubts his other self would have, even if he did own marigolds. Nevermind the size of him. Would take all day, and would still probably be too conspicuous. He almost misses the apocalypse. 

Although if the police do stop him...

Martin feels experimentally for the tendrils of fog, never too far away. They curl around his fingers, that familiar, worrying chill. His disappearing act was dangerous, but it had already saved him from the worms once today. Might as well. 

Actually, nevermind using it if he’s caught. Why not use it now? Jon wouldn't like it, never does, but if Jon wanted a say in things he shouldn't have left Martin behind, should he? It's with a fierce internal _fuck you_ that Martin yanks the Lonely over himself, the most damp and unpleasant blanket ever to exist. Then the anger leaves him just as abruptly as it came, puffed out in a few breaths that fog in front of him.

Can't fall into the numbness now. He's survived this long. It might serve Jon right, but Jon won't know. The only person Martin would be hurting by letting the Lonely drown him is himself.

Still, if he's here anyway...

He drags Other Martin along by the arms, the muffling carpet giving way to the crunch of sand in a few steps, and tries not to think how weirdly light he is. A few worms do wriggle out, only to curl into themselves into the sand and, hopefully, die. Corruption doesn't seem to like the Lonely, or maybe they were halfway to death already. Either way, Martin pulls until he can hear the soft swish of water and the ground is more sand than carpet. 

Never did figure why it's a beach, for him. Other statements had people finding the Lonely in plenty of places. Maybe it was Peter, his whole absurd nautical theme. Maybe it’s his own damnable sense of drama—very good place to brood and be sad, after all. Very good place to bury his Other Self, too.

Martin digs through the sand with his hands. It’s cold and he hates the feeling of the grit between his fingers, but that’s good. Feeling is good in here. He clings to that, and his frustration at how the sand sometimes shifts back down, how slow-going it is. 

The damp clings to him in return, slithers under his collar and down his back. Heavy. Wouldn’t it be easier to just lie here? The water might be nice. He could settle down and rest a bit and never have to worry about the apocalypse or Jonah Magnus or anything at all. He ignores the water and the damp, focuses on the grit. 

When it gets to the point he’d have to climb into the hole to dig any deeper, Martin decides to quit while he’s ahead and pulls the corpse into it, covers it back up. It isn’t a neat mound, nor subtle, at least not at first. It seems to sink a little as he watches it, though, and he tries not to think about how the Lonely got to swallow him up after all. 

He should go back, while he still knows the way, but it feels wrong to do it without a word or two. Tries not to think about how no one knows where this is, no one will visit. _Refuses_ to think about that. Words, right, words.

 _Here lies Martin Blackwood. He was scared and then he died._

Nah. Deserves better than that. 

In the end, all Martin can manage is, “I’m sorry. I hope it didn’t hurt,” even when he knows it probably did. 

*

It takes him longer than he’d have liked to find his way back, but he does manage it, shaking the last of the fog from his hands by reminding himself he’s needed, in this dimension and the next. Whether Jon, _either_ of them, wants to get it through his thick skull or not. He considers playing one of the tapes but. Well.

Instead, Martin familiarises himself with the life he’s about to take over. 

Other Martin’s flat is small, smaller even than his was, but doesn’t feel any cozier for it. What furniture he has is mismatched, bought piecemeal with what he could spare and with what looks like a general attempt at a colour-scheme that changed its mind halfway through. Still no personal pictures on the walls. Instead, impersonal things in black and white that Other Martin no doubt thought of as _artsy._ The sort of thing you put up because you want people to think you’re clever and sophisticated and have an aesthetic, except of course that no one ever came over.

There are books on the shelves he’s never read, music he’s never heard or heard of. He finds the poetry notebooks, one of them a beautiful leather-bound thing with the beginnings of two, maybe three poems, messy and unfinished and not good enough for the _nice_ notebook, which is why the rest of the pages are empty. The other notebooks, being less nice, are filled. He recognises some of the turns of phrase, sometimes entire poems, and isn’t sure if that’s more weird or less than the ones he can’t imagine writing at all. Vaguely unsettled, he slides the last notebook back in place, next to a slightly beaten-up board game he can just imagine himself picking up from a charity shop for the oft-fantasised-about games night with his mates that never materialised. 

The second-hand embarrassment is eventually enough that Martin figures they’re not so different, music taste aside, and he can bullshit the rest. 

From Other Martin’s wallet, helpfully in the same spot Martin always used to keep his when he had a flat to keep it in, second bedside drawer to the left, he realises the birthday is two days off. _Not_ in the same place Martin kept his but easy enough to find once he goes through the rest of the drawers is Other Martin’s bit of emergency cash. Not much, of course, but it should help for now. Much as he’d like to (there’s a warm yellow jumper that looks like it would be very soft, and some punny t-shirts in fandoms he doesn’t know but that make him smile), it’s probably a bad idea to try taking any of Other Martin’s clothes or belongings. The others in the Archive would find that too suspicious and, besides, the thought makes his stomach turn. He’s gotten used to stripping the dead of their belongings but he can already feel the worm-itch under his skin even through the marigolds, so he’s not sure he could stand it. Going to have to buy what he needs. 

Martin buys a change of clothes, toiletries, a bit of food, focusing on that and not the number of people milling around or the feelings climbing up his throat or the pinprick of _something_ just under his skin or the tug of fog at his fingers. He manages pretty well, he thinks, up until he’s back at the Institute and, barely even clear of the stairs, Tim catches him in a crushing hug.

It’s funny, the things you forget when someone’s gone. Hadn’t even known he’d lost it, hadn’t known he’d had it in the first place, but with Tim’s arms wrapped around him, his face buried in the side of Tim’s neck, the scent of him just knocks the breath right out of his lungs with how _Tim_ it is. That soft, low rumble of, “Sorry, mate...We thought it was just a stomach bug, and when we texted you—anyway. I’m sorry. Glad to have you back.”

Even that isn’t as bad as the woman who stands just off the side, coffee in hand and a file tucked under her arm, eyebrows furrowed in concern with a small apologetic smile for him. Because Martin’s first thought is, _Who—?_

Then it slots together because _who else?_ and it feels like an even worse betrayal now, when he _knows_ that blonde bright-eyed woman in his memories is an imposter, and yet here he is, and here she is, and he still doesn’t know her. 

They never noticed when she was killed. And now they haven’t noticed Other Martin die either. 

And it’s, it’s not like one makes up for the other, they aren’t the same person, and it’s not like it was anyone’s _fault_ the Stranger fucked with them. But it all comes together in a vicious sort of _vindication_ clawing in his chest until it’s hard to breathe and so, so tempting to fall back into the Lonely, only he can’t just disappear in Tim’s arms because then not only is he stuck here, he’s stuck here _alone_ , and why is Tim even doing this, he didn’t do it in Martin’s world, if he’d just stuck with a vaguely concerned joke like last time then maybe—

He doesn’t disappear. He crumples into a sobbing mess instead.

Somehow, there’s a chair and truly horrendous tea that he tries his best to drink between the...crying and hiccoughing and all that, which he can’t seem to stop even if he wanted to. At least it means that, when Jon starts to ask why on earth Martin left and where to and what he was _thinking_ , Tim steps in and Jon’s too awkward to push the point. Never quite knew how to handle crying, Jon, and it’s almost funny how fast he retreats into the safety of his office after that.

But, watching him walk away, that quick purposeful stride, that straight back, Martin wants _his_ Jon. Limp and rounded shoulders and all. He, at least, tried. Or would have. If he hadn’t _left him here._ Which, of course, makes Martin think of his Jon just the other morning, a kiss and a whispered _good luck_ before he let Martin walk into _this_. 

It takes a while. 

*

“That another one from Martin’s phone?”

“Oh, Sasha. I didn’t - I thought you’d gone.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I was just finishing up my report for the Hither Green Chapel case. Your phone, though, that look on your face. Another text?”

“Ah, no, it’s…”

“I got one too.”

“Oh.”

“Bit weird, isn’t it? Big spooky worm lady just. Sat there on a mobile, texting us. Do you think she has to charge it?”

“I...hadn’t thought about it, but I would assume so? Unless the phone itself has been imbued with—well, nevermind. Clearly the ravings of a very sick woman, nothing we should pay any mind.”

“I mean. She did just trap Martin for over two weeks.”

“Right, yes.”

“And none of the neighbours noticed. There has to be something going on there. And Martin isn’t faking, there’s no way he could be—”

“No, no, I wasn’t...I believe him. Martin is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call him a liar. Certainly not after those, ah...displays. That, however, does not mean we should pay attention to whatever vaguely ominous messages this woman keeps sending us.”

“Alright, Jon, whatever you say.”

“I refuse to let her amuse herself at our expense.”

“Right...Well, look, I’m heading out. Don’t stay too long, yeah?”

“Yes, good night, Sasha...Mm. _You will share his crimson fate_ indeed...Nonsense.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With many, many thanks to abbyleaf101, rustkid, and smallhorizons for betaing and also just listening to me yell about this fic for months, and thanks to dathen for helping me with my nemesis, the dreaded summary.
> 
> I've had this thing rattling in my brain since the finale and here we are, finally. Now you get to feel this pain too. I'm aiming to upload on a weekly basis, although there may be a bit of time between each of the planned sections of this fic, depending on life, workload, and whether my hands are cooperating. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s alarmingly easy to sink back into the Archives, and Martin hates it. The routine, the old paths, even the damp dark of document storage; it’s all a certain kind of familiar that his brain, in spite of everything, has filed as _good, safe_.

The plan had been this: 

Find Other Martin, keep him from having a nervous breakdown at being faced with a doppelganger from another world—or decking him, which Jon had joked was a definite possibility—and give him a run-down of why this was necessary. Out of all of them, El— _Magnus_ had bothered with Martin the least, apparently didn’t think his mind was worth poking in, so there’s a good chance he’d be able to fly under the radar of their omniscient boss. Cut the eyes out of things, play ignorant, and maybe he’d last at least long enough to tweak a few events. 

He’d been going to suggest small changes, not big ones, with the most important being to keep everyone together and safe, and let things play out until Magnus showed his hand or they could remove him from the institute, and hopefully nullify that deadman’s switch he may or may not have had. 

He had with him a bag of carefully-selected tapes, some from the box and reluctantly relinquished by Jon, others liberated from the ruins of the Institute. They’d help with important dates and events to keep an eye out for but also _proof_ , to hear all of their voices like that, Gertrude laying it all plain. Done by dinner, maybe breakfast the next morning, and then a train back to Oxford and back home. 

The irony here was that Martin was supposed to have arrived a little before the Prentiss incident so he could warn Other Martin about it, but he himself had been intending to suggest letting it happen, his main bit of advice being CO2, a corkscrew, and anything but canned peaches. Just to make sure they all took it seriously, see, to make sure Martin _understood._ He hadn’t, till then. Not really. It’s one thing to think, intellectually, that some of the statements are real, even to be told so clearly by Gertrude Robinson herself. It’s another entirely to be held under siege by a living Flesh Hive that is out to get _you, personally._

And here they are, Other Martin dead, plan fucked before it even started, and him sat at his old desk that isn’t his old desk, pretending he’s working instead of watching Tim and Jon talk over the lip of his monitor.

The statement he’s supposed to be following up isn’t one of the real ones—it’s all over the place, back-tracking to add supposedly forgotten details that are too logical to be true. And besides, he tried a few lines just in case and they recorded to his computer. But, of course, he can’t say that, so mostly he’s typing nonsense, looking up the music and books that had been on Other Martin’s shelves or random details to compare this world to his, keeping up the appearance of being busy. 

Luckily, in this world, Other Martin had snagged the coveted corner desk before Tim had, which means his screen is more or less hidden from the rest, and they’re too busy arguing to pay much attention to him anyway. Nothing new there.

It’s alarmingly easy to sink back into the Archives, and Martin hates it. The routine, the old paths, even the damp dark of document storage; it’s all a certain kind of familiar that his brain, in spite of everything, has filed as _good, safe_. Compared to life since then, yeah, sure. Especially these early days. 

But it’s a safety that grates, a _waiting_ safety, because there are worms in the tunnels and Elias in his office upstairs and fog at his fingers. _This_ is the life his Jon apparently decided on for him, and it’s hard to look at Other Jon and not think about that.

(Martin won’t think about Jon lying to him. Jon _can’t_ sodding lie, he’s terrible at it, so how did he—)

Other Jon looks like he swallowed a lemon as he peers down at whatever Tim is showing him.

Tim taps the...map, it looks like? “Facts are facts, boss. Whether you want to believe in spooky business or not—”

“ _Please_ stop saying that.”

“—we get way more statements in and around Smirke buildings than anywhere else.”

Right...he’d forgotten about that. How Tim’s face lit up whenever a statement had to do with a Robert Smirke building. Just a special interest, he’d said, like Jon had his Leitners, and Martin had, uh, parapsychology—all those papers Martin had obsessively read when he first got hired came in handy, then, although he’d never held a candle to Tim or Jon when they really got started. Used to fret about that. 

“Correlation is not causation, Tim,” Jon says primly and adjusts his glasses. “And you’re taking the validity of these statements as a given, which it is not.”

Tim hangs his head back, clearly exasperated but smiling through it. He shakes his head and says, “Sure, but even you’ve got to admit it’s weird, right?” 

The new plan is this: 

Once he finds the way back, sit Tim down and explain that he already knows. Danny, Grimaldi, the Circus, all of it, play the tape to prove it, and—

And what. Get decked by Tim instead? Great idea, Martin, going to the person who already has experience with monsters wearing a loved one’s skin, he’ll _definitely_ believe you and do what you say. Especially the bit about burying Other Martin in an unreachable eldritch dimension, he’ll love that.

He’s smiling now, teasing gently, placating Jon’s ridiculous skeptic front, but Martin has seen what’s underneath all of that. He’d said, in his statement, that he’d gotten complacent in his search for Danny, but this “special interest” of his is—was?—because of Danny. Part of him is still looking.

Martin can’t remember how he responded to Tim’s theories on Smirke but he definitely wasn’t dismissive like Jon, so he can’t even tell himself that maybe Tim would have eventually shared. He won’t come out and say this. Bad plan, bad idea. 

_“And furthermore_ …”

Sasha slinks in then, far too many books in her arms and bag sliding dangerously off her shoulder. Martin is on his feet automatically to help her with them.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “You haven’t missed a thing.”

Books in arms had been their strategy for whenever they were running late and didn’t fancy a lecture from the Bossman: just pretend they’d gone straight to the library, and Diana was usually willing to fudge things for them, if needed. 

“Oh, God, what are they on about now?” Sasha whispers back.

“I’ve been trying to block them out.”

“Wish I’d gotten that coffee after all. Suppose breakroom coffee will have to do.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to offer to make some for her. He swallows it down. Not his Sasha, not his world, he shouldn’t be getting comfortable here. Besides, what if they all take their drinks differently? What if they have different mugs? Wouldn’t it be suspicious if he’d suddenly forgotten? 

“Alright, Martin?” she says.

“Oh, ah. Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, just—” And he waves in Tim and Jon’s general direction. “Been a bit hard to concentrate.”

She nods earnestly enough but it’s plain she doesn’t believe it. Instead of calling him out on it, however, Sasha’s smile turns sympathetic. “Anyway. Glad to see you decided to get rid of that awful beard.” Weird subject change but he’ll take it, huffing a laugh as he self-consciously rubs at his now-smooth cheeks. Guess she’s decided anything off about Martin is Prentiss-related? “Let’s leave old man chic to Jon, yeah?”

Before he can do much more than smile, Tim’s calling out, “Here, let’s ask Sasha about it. Sash!”

Sasha thanks Martin for his help, pats his arm lightly, and then tells Tim, “Please leave me out of whatever you two are fighting about,” even as she makes her way over. Her groan as Tim asks whether or not the picture he’s showing her is just the sexiest building ever, and then way Jon is pinching the bridge of his nose because _it’s a building, Tim_ , _how is a building sexy,_ all of it just makes him ache a little.

Right.

The _new_ -newplan is this:

Once he finds the way back, sit _Sasha_ down. She was always a bit more reasonable, and Gertrude did address the tape to her. If he explains it to her, the entities, the apocalypse—she’s already cottoned on to the fact Martin has changed, a bit. Seems to think it was mostly just the trauma but it wouldn’t be a leap. She worked in Artefact Storage, she’s not afraid of admitting when something might be spooky. 

Obviously she’d need to be warned away from Artefact Storage ever again, absolutely no going near any tables.

Assuming she hadn’t already.

Other Martin’s dead. Who’s to say this is even Sasha? Not like Martin remembers. But no, no, monsters have issues with computers, right? Electronics? He definitely remembers Not-Sasha having computer issues, at least, not to mention Peter. Same reason statements went on tape. So this Sasha is probably actually Sasha and, hopefully, with forewarning, won’t be getting replaced anytime soon. 

And if she does? If she does, then...Martin has just casually handed the Stranger the keys to the apocalypse. 

Can’t have _Jon_ be the one he tells, either. His Jon had been very vehement about that and Martin had argued at first, but time and the Lonely had softened the memory of how Jon had been. Given the refresher of this Jon’s increasingly absurd explanations for the things he puts on tape, there’s no way he’d admit to believing it. And even if he did...either he’d resent Martin for forcing him to confront the supernatural and curl into a spiky uncooperative ball of spite, or...God, probably he’d decide to try and keep everyone safe, run into it half-cocked, and just play even more into Magnus’ hand. 

Fuck, and then there’s Magnus to think about. Assuming he doesn’t know already, he definitely would as soon as Martin told Jon. Very inconvenient, the whole mind-reading nemesis thing. The others might hope to be insignificant enough that Magnus overlooks them, and even then it’s a stretch, but he might decide it’s funny to let them knock about and leave them alone. Meddle with his Archivist, though? Not a chance.

Fuckfuckfuck _fuck._

Calm, he’s calm. He just needs to think on this a bit more. Later. He’ll think on it later, when the rest of them have gone home and Martin needs to fill the quiet. For now, he pulls himself together for when Sasha, inevitably, takes Jon’s side and Tim needs someone else to back him up on the inherent sexiness of a building. Needs to play the part, after all.

*

Temporary. That’s what he needs to remind himself. He isn’t here for long, can’t be here for long, so he also can’t get _comfortable._

Christ, but it’s so nice to see the sun, even weak and watery as it is. The sky isn’t glaring and he can trust the ground beneath his feet and the people on the street have faces that don’t hurt to look at, and he can feel himself getting used to it. Squints at the sky and the ground and the people until Tim’s hand on his arm brings him back to his rapidly-cooling coffee and the sandwich that’s falling apart in his hands. 

“Hey. You alright?” 

Martin wants to say no. Because he does not belong here. Because there are worms in the walls and in the tunnels and on the steps just outside the Archive that he squashes judiciously whenever he sees them. Because there is an Eye, watching, and there is a person already dead in the fog and there is a world just beyond his reach. It is not safe here. It will never be safe here. He _should not be getting comfortable_.

What Martin says instead is, “We should go back.” 

It isn’t fair, because Tim hadn’t _asked_ Martin to come along, so why should he have to cut his lunch short? Tim hadn’t asked, but Martin heard him cheerfully saying he was going to try that new place ‘round the corner, did anyone want anything? And Sasha was busy working and Jon was Jon and Martin couldn’t let Tim go out there _alone_. Things could be different here. Jane Prentiss had already killed one of them, who was to say she wouldn’t try her luck with another? 

(Not alone, not _alone_.)

So it isn’t fair, but Tim nods anyway, promptly stuffs the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. Martin could have said something about that, already knows how Tim would waggle his eyebrows and say something or the other about _practice_ in response, but the thought hurts so he doesn’t. Just wraps up his own sandwich in a napkin and takes one last large gulp of his coffee and stands up. The clap of Tim’s hand on his shoulder is a comforting, crushing weight. 

“I’m proud of you for coming out,” Tim says. 

“Hm?”

“For not shutting yourself away in the Archives, I mean. What with you living there at all. Sealed room, no worms, I get it, I don’t blame you. But we already have _one_ overworked basement hermit, after all. I don’t think the Institute could handle another.”

Martin pushes on a smile. “No, I guess not.” 

From Tim’s sympathetic sidelong look, he guesses he wasn’t super convincing, or maybe that Other Martin might have said something different. Defended Jon? Not had the voice of a different Tim, an angrier Tim, in his ears and weighing him down? 

Time to deflect. 

“I - I _want_ to hide,” Martin says. “They could be anywhere, y’know? The worms or, or whatever the hell else are in those statements. But, I mean...they could be anywhere. Even where I’m hiding. So...I guess I figure, if I’m going to be scared, I can at least be scared out here. It’s nice out here. With the—well, not the sun, so much, but the wind? And the people? All the sounds and smells of life going on anyway.”

“Huh. Never figured you for a poet, Martin, but that was some deep poetry shit.”

Martin slows to a stop, all the air sucked out of him. Tim...doesn’t know about the poetry? That’s not right. Tim knew about a lot of things. Tim knew about the poetry and his mum and—God, he’d even known about his CV. 

But this Tim doesn’t, maybe, and that’s...

He hardly knew Other Martin at all. 

“Martin?” Tim says, concern etched in the furrow of his brow. 

“I. I am, actually,” he says, and doesn’t know why. Just that the thought of Tim not knowing is crushing. “Or. Try to. I mean, I write...poetry? Sometimes?”

Tim’s mouth spreads in a delighted smile. He spends the whole way back elbowing Martin to try and get some poetry out of him, but it doesn’t feel right to say any of Other Martin’s lines when he isn’t here to say them, and his own are...The ones he remembers best are his latest, and they’re nothing Tim would understand and hopefully never will. Of older poetry, he only remembers bits and pieces. Right around now would have been his _soppy poetry about Jon_ stage, probably. He misses it. Misses him. 

There are worms lying in wait on the pavement outside the Institute. He stomps on them without much thought or satisfaction. 

*

On the weekend, Martin manages to steal away for a day to check the House on Hill Top Road again. Still nothing. He isn’t surprised but he wanted to make sure, see the rest of the house. No dimension-crossing hole, no Jon, nothing else left for him except the tape that’s been burning a hole in his pocket the past week. He hasn’t listened to it and he doesn’t intend to. Jon doesn’t get to brush him off with a recorded _I’m sorry_.

He gets back to the Institute and it’s empty, haunted. It’s tempting to break into Elias’ office for the keys to the trap door. Take a few fire extinguishers down there and just go to town on Prentiss and her sodding worms and, hell, Leitner too. But the last thing he wants is to change things too much, too early. 

It’s possible Elias has already read his mind and changed tacks but if he hasn’t, if Martin is still too insignificant to bother with or he’s focused on Jon and Prentiss and all that, then...maybe, for once, Martin can be the person who knows things. There’s enough he doesn’t know right now that it would be nice not to have to worry about what’s going to attack when, just for a few months. Just until he figures the rest out.

First, how to get home. 

Without Jon lurking far past when he should be, because even he can’t justify spending the weekend at work yet, the Archives are his. Still a confusing mess, and unlike some people he doesn’t have statements calling out to him, but he has time. Weekends and nights, when Jon finally staggers out of his office to head home, Martin sits and scans the statements, pulls aside every one that’s even vaguely Web or Spiral and especially ones to do with the House on Hill Top Road or Raymond Fielding or doors to places that shouldn’t have been.

One upside to the confusing mess is that no one can really tell if he shuffles some statements around and smuggles them into document storage and if someone, say, _barges in without knocking_ late in the evening, Martin can simply say, “Oh...I, um. Well, I’m here anyway, so I figured I’d read through some of the stuff in the boxes? See if I can’t find that, uh, that Prentiss statement you said we had?”

And Jon pauses like that’s _such_ an alien idea, like Martin didn’t get in this mess in the first place because he was doing his job, and that little itch of anger Martin has been keeping under wraps bubbles to the surface with a, “Was there anything you needed, Jon? S’pretty late.” 

“Oh. Ah. Yes.” 

As opposed to getting the hint, Jon shuffles to the boxes on Martin’s right, which are piled high and constantly threaten to topple over him in his small cot but also provide the closest thing to a separating wall there is. He rummages through the top box for several increasingly-awkward minutes, moves onto the one beside it when he doesn’t find what he needs. Finally, eventually, dusts his hands off, saying, “It’s impossible to find anything in these boxes. I don’t suppose any of the statements in your hands are the—is that a _stuffed toy_?”

He’s squinting at Martin from over the wall of boxes like some busybody neighbour, pushing his glasses up his scrunched up nose. 

Martin glances over and, yes, his stuffed Highland cow is peeking out from his backpack. Better that than the tapes, better that than a lot of things Jon could have seen—but it’s the tone of voice, the way he, God, Martin had forgotten how put-on he used to sound, the way everything sounds like an accusation or the lead up to a dressing down. Look at Martin, the grown man with the stuffed toy in his sad little cot in his sad little corner of document storage, which he’s only living in because he’s afraid to go home and Jon had _pity._

Part of him acknowledges it’s unfair, he’s reading too far into this, all Jon did was _ask_ and it isn’t _his_ fault he had to sound so incredulous about the cow plush that his Jon gave him, back before the world was fucked. It’s tatted and dirty and scorched by now, and missing its eyes too, but that part was on purpose. Otherwise, Martin has managed to keep it safe, for the most part, and it’s all he has left of his Jon that doesn’t feel like being stabbed in the throat if he thinks about it too much.

So it’s unfair, yes. But everything is unfair, and that small part of Martin that sees it is very quickly subsumed by the rest of Martin, which is just _mad._

“Yeah, actually. Yeah, it is. I figure I’m due what comfort I can get that isn’t covered by worms, y’know? Nearly _dying_ has that effect. So. Yeah. Something wrong with that?”

“N-no, no that wasn’t what I - I was merely. Surprised.”

“Right.”

“I wasn’t expecting to—”

“I got that, yeah.”

Jon clears his throat, seems unsure what to do with his hands for a moment, glances back toward the door. “I’ll, ah…” And gestures toward it.

His very serious, not-at-all-awkward stride out of document storage should not be as endearing as it is. Martin groans, dropping his face into the pillow, and tries to ignore the cold guilt that coils in his nerves.

Back to the statements. The sooner he can get back to the Jon he’s actually mad at, the better.

*

The plan is...leave the tapes in strategic locations, interspersed with the ones Jon is already recording. Have Tim find the circus ones—no, he’d just dig his heels in and do something reckless. 

The real tragedy here is that Martin isn’t writing any of this down, which means he can’t even get the satisfaction of ripping a paper up dramatically. Doesn’t need a certain someone rooting through his bin again. Instead, he just tugs gently at his hair and starts all over again. 

No, have Tim find the ones about _Sasha_ —or, would that be too outlandish? Easy to dismiss as a practical joke? 

And then he pauses, lifting his head out of his hands, breath stilling so he can listen. At the very edge of everything, a muffled yell. 

It feels like waking up. 

Martin is moving immediately, hand going for the—right. No knife here. He grabs the CO2 canister he stole from upstairs instead and heads towards the noise, slow, cautious. Closer, it sounds like Sasha, still through layers of cotton wool. He can barely make out the words, _what do you mean—?_ and, bright even through the fog, an obnoxiously yellow door. 

The figure standing in the doorway is not familiar, but it looks his way and smiles, and it has too many eyes. 

“Interesting,” it says, with a voice that comes from too many places at once, and promptly shoves Sasha from its doorway. Martin catches her, barely, and gets a few scratches from Sasha’s frantic scrabbling until she realises it’s him.

“Martin! Where did you—”

“I’ll be seeing you,” the figure says, and the yellow door swings shut with an ominous creak that feels, frankly, cliche. 

“Gerry, wait—!” Sasha says, reaching. But the door’s gone, and so is...Gerry?

Martin kicks away the last of the fog he’s just now realising has been weighing him down but keeps hold of Sasha. For a few moments, all they can do is look at each other. Her face is still that of a stranger but right now she’s a panicked stranger, wild-eyed, panting, and shit, bleeding?

“I have a First Aid kit in document storage,” Martin says. “You should come with me. I’ll bandage you up and...and maybe get you some tea?” No, this Sasha wasn’t a tea person. “Coffee? Whatever you like. Then maybe you can, ah, can tell me what happened?”

“It really is you,” she says, and sags a little in relief. “Sorry, Martin, it’s only...You appeared out of nowhere, and I thought…”

“S’alright. Sounds like you’ve had a night, huh?” 

He pushes on a smile. If it happened the way he remembers, the Spiral decided to show Sasha how to kill a Corruption-infested person—don’t think of the holes, _do not_ think of the holes—but that was Michael, and this is Gerry, so for all he knows it might have been an entirely different experience. 

“I mean, a door just appeared and disappeared and here you are. I get it. You don’t have to come anywhere with me, if you don’t want to. I just thought—the, the bed? The cot, I mean, bed is probably a bit generous, but it looks like you could use some rest. Or I can...Is there anyone I can call for you?”

“Jon,” she says immediately. “I - we should call Jon.”

“Right, yeah. I’ll do that.” Of course. Why would any of them have family or loved ones to call? Elias picked them well. “You prefer to stay here, or document storage?”

Sasha lets him guide her to the cot, in the end, apparently determined to get over whatever irrational fear had gripped her, or maybe deciding Martin’s reappearing trick had been thanks to the Spiral. She, at least, has the decency not to comment on the cow plush, nor the statement files Martin sweeps aside to give her somewhere to lie down.

What she says, instead, as he’s cleaning her shoulder is, “Looks like you’re prepared for anything in here. First Aid, food, water bottles, fire extinguishers—is that a corkscrew?”

“For worms, not for drinking. Lucky I didn’t have to use it on your shoulder.” Martin manages a chuckle, trails off when Sasha fails to laugh with him. He finishes bandaging it up and gets to his feet again with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You’ll be fine. I’ll, um...I’ll call Jon for you.”

He remembers to head out of storage to make the phone call—reception’s always been shoddy down here—but has to return to Sasha a few moments later, sheepish, having forgotten he needs a phone first. “Could I...I haven’t replaced my phone yet. Since..y’know. Might need to use yours?”

Sasha shoots up. “I’ll do it.” 

And then there’s an awkward beat or two before they both start to stammer over each other, him saying it’s alright and her saying she should stretch her legs, then she hurries past him and he lets her, his reassuring smile dropping once she’s gone. 

The room is too silent now that she’s gone. None of the tape recorders are on. No one is listening. 

*

“The first thing I noticed out of the ordinary was that the café was still open. Normally they shut up about six o’clock, but the lights were on and the door was open. I couldn’t see anyone behind the counter, though, and there was only one customer.” 

“Let me guess. Tall, dark, and monster?”

“Tall, dark, and monster. He was sat in the exact same position he’d been that morning, drinking what could easily have been the exact same coffee. Even his cigarette looked like it was burnt down about the same? He met my eyes with his - eyes. All of them. I’d noticed that morning that he had tattoos or markings of some sort on his knuckles? Now that I was paying attention, I could see that they were eyes. Wide, staring eyes, one on his throat too, and they were...Looking at me?

“I cast around for anyone who might confirm what I was seeing, but the street was empty, except for a car that drove past. In the curving glass of its tinted windows, I saw him there, the weird distorted body, rail-thin and limp, the hands huge and sharp. And then the car passed on and I turned back to see a normal-looking man. Still looking at me. 

“He gestured to the chair across from him, clearly inviting me inside. I don’t know why I wasn’t more scared going in there, but I wasn’t. My curiosity apparently conquered my nervousness.

He said hello. Like we were old mates meeting up for a drink or something. Just, _hello._ I could see now that his coffee cup was empty. Whatever was inside had dried up hours ago. His cigarette didn’t smell like anything at all. 

“He said that I probably had some questions, so I’d best get them over with. He said he probably wouldn’t answer them in any satisfactory way, and he was sorry for that, but he said it so wryly it was clear he wasn’t sorry at all. 

“This put my back up a bit, to be honest, and I told him if he was here to have some fun at my expense I was just going to leave. He actually apologised, albeit grudgingly, and said it wasn’t in his nature to answer questions anymore but that he would do his best. 

“So I asked him what he was and he shook his head, grimacing. He said that question he could answer _least_ of all, that he couldn’t describe it even if he wanted to. What was the phrase he used… “How would you describe a colour to someone who had never seen it? Now, how would that colour describe itself?”

“And then said I could just call him Gerard. 

“That’s when I put it all together. The long black hair, the tattoos—mind, none of the statements had mentioned the weird hands or any of the other things I’d been seeing, but it’s been a while since we saw him mentioned last. I figure he had a run-in with another Leitner or something and, well, here we are. 

“So I asked him if he was Gerard Keay.

“You can call me Gerard, he said again, and then paused, tilting his head to the side a little. Then he said, he always wanted his friends to call him Gerry. 

“Not, _I_. He said, _he_ always wanted his friends to call him Gerry.

“I didn’t want to call him Gerry. The way he said it was almost...mocking? But I couldn’t be sure if that was directed at me or at...well, Gerard Keay, before he’d gotten...whatever this was. Still, it wasn’t like I had any other name for him. No, not for him. For it.

“All I could think to ask was if that was what it wanted. To be friends. It laughed then, very quietly, but it sounded...unnatural.

“It said _sure_ , friends. It said it wanted to help.

“With what, I asked. Did it want to stop Jane Prentiss? And it laughed that weird laugh again and told me it couldn’t believe how uninformed the archive staff was these days, then said maybe that was the point. That part, it sounded like it was saying to itself, but I asked what it meant anyway. It said, the flesh-hive was always rash and that that was a nasty one to get tangled with. 

“It said, “Better Beholding for you, but I guess you don’t know that yet.”

“And I swear, those eye tattoos blinked.

“By this point, I was just about sick of this weird thing that looked like a person but was not a person and talked in riddles. It made no move to stop me as I headed towards the door. As I was about to exit, though, it called after me, and said if I was interested in saving your life it would be waiting at Hanwell Cemetery.”

“Sorry, _my_ life?”

“Yeah, it called you by name. You. And Martin. And Tim. Although…”

“What?”

“It said something weird about Martin. Not that the rest of it wasn’t weird, but it said...It said it expects this one could take care of himself better than the last, but we wouldn’t want to take any chances. I guess maybe it meant Martin can take care of himself better than you? The last one it mentioned? Martin did barricade himself for two weeks and all. I assumed that was it at first, but…

“When I got here. I’d—Gerry dropped me off, and that was plenty weird as it is. The door, the hallways...I’ll get to that in a minute, but when I got here everything was cold. Damp. Even more than usual, I mean. I was calling out to see where Gerry had gone when Martin appeared suddenly out of nowhere. I mean that literally. It’s like he just...appeared. Out of thin air. That could have just been Gerry, I suppose, whatever lingering weirdness he left behind. 

“What really struck me is that Martin was there with a CO2 canister. And I _just_ learned tonight that that was how you got the worms. It seems like a really weird coincidence to have that be the first thing he grabbed, or...if he’d tried that on them, why didn’t he break through Prentiss’ worms earlier? And why not tell us? And then there’s how strange he’s been behaving. I saw him kill a spider the other day, you know.”

“Well, at least I won’t have to sit through another lecture on their role in the ecosystem.”

“ _Jon_. I’m serious. What if something happened to him? One of the worms or—”

“He’s been living in the Archive for over two weeks now. If something had... _gotten_ him, I think we would have noticed.”

“I guess so.”

“I’m sure it’s just the stress. Still, if it makes you feel better, we can keep a closer eye on him. Back to, ah, Gerry. Did you go to the Cemetery?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so many thanks, as always for abbyleaf101, rustkid, and smallhorizons for betaing! 
> 
> As you may have noticed, Jon and Sasha's conversation is based largely on MAG 26: A Distortion, just with a few, ah...tweaks. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s useless. The statements have no convenient Instructions For Opening Cross-Dimensional Doors, and Gerry or whatever the Distortion is here hasn’t deigned to show up again despite Martin’s attempts to court it. One week slides into the next and the next and Martin’s mantra of _don’t get comfortable_ fades into an occasional sighed reminder.
> 
> And they’re so young. So _alive._

“You got me a...plant.” Martin looks from the small spiky thing sitting atop the pile in Tim’s hands, to Tim’s bright grin, then quickly remembers himself and adds, “Not that I’m not _grateful_ but I - I didn’t…? Have a plant at my flat?”

Right? Martin had poked around it fairly thoroughly, after. He would have remembered this succulent, if only because that was such a painfully millennial thing to have, wasn’t it, succulents? And also he’d have been surprised Other Martin had managed to keep it alive, given his own track record with houseplants.

Tim nods. “Nope, you didn’t, and that’s why I got you one.”

Sasha, with her own armful of stuff in a box, rounds the corner with a, “Martin, could you—?” clearly struggling with her load, so Martin hurries to take it from her hands.

“What’s all this? Guys, I - thank you, but I just wanted sheets and maybe another change of clothes?” 

And even that he’d only brought up because Tim had insisted. Now that they knew how to combat worms, he was all gung-ho about reclaiming Martin’s flat, and Martin saying he wasn’t sure he could stand to live there again had only dimmed his enthusiasm a _little_ , until he came upon the idea to at least reclaim his things. 

Nevermind that Martin doesn’t particularly have space for any of it. 

And now, opening the box to see what’s in it, he’s hit with a whiff of— 

“You washed it too? You didn’t have to—”

“Nah, don’t be silly. If you don’t wanna come stay with one of us, we weren’t about to let you sleep on worm-smell. This place already smells like dust and sadness as it is. And the plant brightens it up a bit!” 

“He insisted,” Sasha says, apologetic. 

“Yeah, he does that.” And, inconvenient as it is—there _really_ isn’t any room—Martin can’t help the smile or the tightness in his chest. “Thank you. I didn’t realise he’d roped you into going with him.”

“ _She_ insisted,” Tim says, sliding behind them both. He sticks the plant on top of a box of documents, tilts his head, says, “Nah,” and swipes it down to look for another place for it.

Bemused, Martin says, “You know it’ll die, right? The - I mean, won’t it need sun? And I don’t think Jon would like it if I brought soil and water in contact with the documents.”

“And that’s why it’s plastic, see?”

Tim thrusts the plant under his nose and—well, now that it’s under his nose, he can see the plasticky sheen a bit better. Feels that familiar hot creep of _right yeah of course, stupid, foolish_ up his neck. “Oh, that works nicely, then.”

“Yep. Wanted to get more, really, or at least something a bit bigger, but Sasha pointed out the space thing and, well, it’s not the size that counts, right? Oh, and she brought you some of your books. Better than reading statements.”

Sasha smiles, though it’s awkward. “I noticed, when...um, anyway, I figured, if you were bored enough you’d ended up reading _those_...And it’s not good for you, you know? Jon gave me the day off after the whole monster thing, but you never really got to take a break from this place.”

“Hard to take a break when I’m here,” Martin says. “I don’t mind. The more we know about these things, the better, yeah? But - but I appreciate it. Thank you, Sasha—yes, and you, Tim. And for the...the washing, and for going to bring me stuff in the first place.”

Nope, not crying again, no more crying, he’s done with crying. Deep breath. There we go. Bad enough his crying is probably what brought all of this on. They’d certainly never done this in his world. A sympathetic pat, a hug, and Tim did bring him sheets, but that was about the extent of it. He’d even gotten the sense Sasha had been a bit annoyed with him whenever he’d make a fuss about it after. Turned out all he needed to do was have a bit of a breakdown and look at this, all the attention in the world.

“Words are cheap, Blackwood. How about you thank us by coming out with us?”

“O-oh, yeah, sure. I’ll get us lunch?”

“Won’t say no to that, but I was thinking more, drinks? Tonight? What do you say, Sash?”

“Been a while since we’ve had an assistants’ night out,” she says.

“Psh, you mean how we’d talk and talk about it and never actually do anything?” Tim says, saving Martin from having to figure out if he needed to bullshit his way through memories of outings _he’d_ certainly never had with his Tim and Sasha.

Martin smiles. “Well, if ever there was an excuse for - for drinks, I guess, it’s this.”

“Hell yeah, that’s the spirit.”

*

The surprising thing isn’t that it’s fun. They used to be friends, all of them—at least, Martin assumes he was friends with Sasha, it’s...hard to be sure, but the dynamic they settle into is one Martin remembers. Tim wheedles Sasha, Sasha rises to the bait with challenges of her own, and if you let them get started they’ll never stop, which is where Martin comes in, settling them both down.

The surprising thing is how... _easy_ it is. 

Assistants’ Night Out becomes a regular thing.

Or, well, as regular as workaholics prone to losing track of time chasing spooky leads can make it. A few Fridays inevitably slip through the cracks. That’s still more Fridays than Martin would have thought they’d manage, more Fridays than he and _his_ Tim and Sasha ever did. They’re...they’re making an effort, though. Whether it’s because they feel sorry for him, with his long weekend of listening for the squirm of worms and misery and ghosts in the Institute walls, or to assuage their own guilt for not checking in on him in the first place, they’re making an effort.

Which means that Martin, with the sinking certainty he’s not going anywhere soon, has to do the same.

There is a pattern to these nights. 

Martin always gets the first round. In a life before this one, he used to worry about what would happen if someone got a round and then left before he could pay for his and the feeling—not of owing someone, but of them assuming he’s ungrateful, skint, disliking him because of it… Not to mention the stress of trying to keep track of what he owes who, how much, and how badly that sinks his budget for the week...well, it’s just easier to get the first round. Means he can just nurse that one drink all night and never owe anyone anything, neither money nor an explanation for if he’s not drinking, and now it’s a habit, and so that’s what he does. 

By the time he’s back with their drinks, Tim and Sasha will already have found something to argue about, and he can sit there with his sometimes secretly nonalcoholic cocktail and listen, vague pop music buoying the susurrus of pub chatter and one or the other of them being very smart about something very dumb or vice versa. 

Their conversation starts with work, then telling each other off for bringing work into fun assistant drinks night, then a brief interlude of hobbies—boxing and mystery novels for Sasha, video games and disgustingly outdoorsy stuff for Tim, sometimes relationships but then that’s mostly Tim because Sasha is aro and some flavour of ace and mostly disinterested, and Martin folds that discovery away, precious, preserves it under glass. Then circling back to work but prepackaged in gossip, or maybe speculation as to what _really_ got the statement givers, and how much they do or don’t believe Jon’s absurd theories. Then they tell each other off for it again again. Rinse and repeat. 

It’s fascinating. It’s sad. And, if they’re going to weather this together, it isn’t enough.

On their fourth Friday out, Martin manages to bring Jon along.

He knows Tim already asked him, gotten a prim _No, thank you_ in response, but he also knows his Jon felt half-mocked by Tim sometimes, unsure whether he was teasing or being serious, and tended to err on the side of caution. More importantly, Martin knows how to speak Jon, and a little bit how to play on the guilt Jon has about the Prentiss incident. Dirty trick, sure, but it’s for his own good. 

And he seems to be enjoying it, once he can join in their debates with opinions of his own. Tentative, at first, then less so after the second drink. Becomes part of the pattern, easy as breathing. Martin watches, chin in his palm and painfully fond, tries not to think of whether there might be a tape recording somewhere. He hopes that, if there is, _this_ Jon won’t end up huddled in the dark creaking cabin listening and listening and _listening_.

Martin doesn’t remind himself that he’s not staying, don’t get comfortable, don’t get settled. It’s useless. The statements have no convenient Instructions For Opening Cross-Dimensional Doors, and Gerry or whatever the Distortion is here hasn’t deigned to show up again despite Martin’s attempts to court it. One week slides into the next and the next and Martin’s mantra of _don’t get comfortable_ fades into an occasional sighed reminder. 

And they’re so young. So _alive._

So when they realise, finally, that they’ve been going on for a bit without him and turn those bright eyes, bright smiles his way to ask his opinion and how he’s been, he doesn’t brush it off, half-truth it.

Instead, Martin looks down at his drink and says, “Not, um...not great, actually? I...called my mum the other day. Or, hah, tried to.” 

Isn’t even a lie. She’s still alive here, still in that home in Dover, and still, presumably, her old bitter self. He called out of curiosity more than obligation. He isn’t sure how he’d have handled it if Other Martin had a mother who actually liked him but no, this world isn’t _that_ different, and the curdled relief-guilt is getting to be a familiar feeling.

Tim slides closer in the booth, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “If you wanna tell us about it, we’re all ears. Unless you want to keep your secrets and remain an international man of mystery, of course, that’s cool too. I mean, I’d be jealous, but that’s beside the point.”

And _that_ , see, that’s the plan. 

Lying is easy and...sure, it can be nice, sometimes, to have that bit of control, tell the story the way _he_ wants it to be. And, seeing as how their entire perception of Martin K. Blackwood has been a lie from the start, even before he jumped dimensions and buried his doppelganger and all that, it’s not like he feels particularly bad about it. 

But Martin is here for the foreseeable future and _this—_ Tim’s arm around his shoulders, that snortlaugh Sasha makes, even Jon’s slightly awkward shift in his seat—it’s worth protecting, worth having. And to do that, he will crack his chest open and offer up this bloody beating confession, he will let them See him.

Then maybe, just _maybe_ they’ll learn it’s okay to offer some of themselves up too. 

Martin smiles into his drink, deep breath, and says, “Not much of a secret, really, just...Didn’t want to be a downer, I guess? She’s...It’s been hard for us. And ever since she got ill, it’s only gotten harder.”

It isn’t like things will change overnight and they’ll suddenly tell each other all their deepest traumas. Of course not. He can’t build years worth of trust and friendship in a night. But it’s a start. 

If they learn it’s okay, sometimes, to say when things are wrong or bad or, hell, find comfort in one another from the start...maybe, this time, it really wouldn’t be the end of the world.

*

Martin can tell when Jon starts recording the Prentiss statement. The walls aren’t as thick as Jon thinks they are and, while Martin may not be able to hear the actual words from his corner desk, there is an audible shift in the cadence. The even hum of the ones that go on the computer are very different from this, the rise and fall, the _drama._ They used to make fun, the assistants, of serious Jon and his AmDram aspirations but really, in hindsight, it was just a way to diffuse the sudden discomfort of that intangible _something_ pressing down on them whenever it started up.

It’s nothing compared to the Eye in the sky, nothing at all compared to Jon looking and Seeing him, but it makes the back of Martin’s neck prickle anyway. 

He remembers what it was like, those few statements he put to tape, the flavour of the words as they were being pulled out of him. He remembers how Jon looked after the Prentiss statement last time. He pushes up from his desk with a, “Anyone fancy a cuppa?” and heads to the break room for tea. 

He makes Jon’s without a thought, tea bag left in too long and a godawful amount of sugar, just a splash of milk. He’s had the time to observe Jon making it himself, while he’s chatted to Hannah or Sonya or the students and brought himself up to speed on what is different and what is the same, and Jon’s tea is one thing that’s the same. Tim’s too, with always a tad too much milk. Sasha declined the offer of coffee, and that’s probably for the best, keeps him from having to make several trips. 

He sets his own tea on his desk in passing, hands Tim his, then looks at the door to Jon’s office, where they can hear the low, even hum that must be his post-statement review. Nearly done now.

“Ooh, Boss has tea privileges too now, does he?” Tim says. You can _hear_ the knowing grin in his voice. 

“I mean, he _is_ letting me stay here,” Martin says. “And...that was the Prentiss one, right? You said you finished follow-up the other day, and we know it’s only the spooky ones that make him sound like that.”

“Could be he found another spooky one in the pile.”

“Could be.” And then Jon’s office is silent. Statement ends. “Either way, figure he deserves some tea.” Martin pushes off from Tim’s desk, waving away Tim’s _Go get ‘im,_ and knocks on the door.

_Knock knock._

There is no smiling, _Who’s there?_ There is nothing in response at all. Martin pushes the door open, because Jon has a tendency not to notice things around him, anyway, and he’d once spent several minutes just knocking. Especially after a statement. Especially after this one.

There is no one sat behind the desk. 

There are, instead, legs stretched out behind it that are currently flailing and there’s that one heart-stopping moment of _no no not him too_ , the image of Other Martin overlaid, until the top of Jon’s head pops up, and then his hand, as he uses the desk to push himself up. Hair a bit mussed, glasses askew before he adjusts them, and a mark on his cheek from where it had been digging in, and ah...The flailing was surprise, embarrassment, not death by worms or eldritch nightmares or or _or_. 

Even knowing that, the bottom’s still dropped out of Martin’s stomach and it isn’t coming back anytime soon. He feels hollow and overfull all at once, stuck between _oh thank God_ and _not my Jon_ and that little traitorous part of him that says _close enough._

His Jon is probably fine. His Jon, the Eye doesn’t want to hurt. This Jon, the Eye very much does want to hurt, and he can’t help the urge to reach out and tuck this Jon’s hair behind his ear, trace his fingers over the clean-shaven jaw and down to his bobbing adam’s apple, find where the Hunt scar should have been.

“Yes, Martin?” Jon bites out. 

Not his Jon, _not his Jon_.

“I made you some tea,” Martin says, and holds it up. Jon’s brow furrows in confusion, and Martin can _see_ the beginnings of indignation—didn’t ask for tea, kindly wait for an answer before entering, something along those lines. Whatever he’s going to say to salvage his ego, Martin cuts him off first. “You know, if you need a lie-down, the cot’s still here.”

“Yes, I’m aware, thank you.”

“And you’re aware it’s probably better on your back than the floor? Come on. I’ll clear my stuff off of it and you can have your cot back—just for now, though, don’t get used to it.”

Jon doesn’t smile. “Thank you,” he says, settling into his chair again. “For the tea. I needed to rest for a moment but I’m perfectly fine now.”

Martin reminds himself that he’d come here, tea and all, as a peace offering. That if they’re going to survive this, Jon has to be part of the team as well. That this Jon hasn’t done anything to deserve Martin’s annoyance aside from being a bit of a prick, which...yeah, is plenty, but that’s because he’s scared and unsure and still worried about his job and his image and Martin can’t find it in him to be mad at _that_. 

“It’s alright if you’re not, you know.”

“What?”

“It’s alright if you’re not fine. There’s...a worm lady hanging around and Gerard Keay has knife-hands now, apparently, and who even knows what else, just based on all the statements. Plus there’s…” Martin waves a hand vaguely at their surroundings. “There’s something weird here? In the Institute, I mean. In the Archives. Feels a little like…”

Jon is tense, frozen in half a movement. Like a man hoping that if he doesn’t turn to look, doesn’t _move_ , whatever’s watching won’t come after him. Not ready, then. Martin doesn’t finish the thought.

“Anyway. I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about, but only if you come have a proper lie-down. No offense, Jon, but you look like you need it.”

His lips purse but Martin does it right back at him and, as usual, it’s Jon who folds first. “If it will persuade you to return to your work, I - I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Jon says.

He forgets about his tea when he stalks out of the office, so Martin brings it along, following on Jon’s heels to document storage like it was all Jon’s idea, like Martin couldn’t overtake him if he wanted to. It means that Jon has to loiter awkwardly at the door while Martin catches up and then clears his stuff aside, but isn’t he lucky he has tea to hold onto in the meantime?

Martin starts to apologise for the clutter, Tim and Sasha got a bit overenthusiastic, but he’s been keeping it to the boxes and his bag for the most part—when a surprised hum from Jon makes him glance over his shoulder. It’s the little pleased sound of finding something unexpectedly perfect, and it’s directed at his tea. His tea that Martin made.

Of course, when he notices Martin notice, he clears his throat and is all bluster again, all _thank you, that’s sufficient, you should really go back to work._ But, for at least that little bit, Martin is warm. 

*

Then, the table.

There is a large wooden box, unmarked and unremarkable, eating up space in the foyer. Together with the two large supposed delivery men on either side of it, it forms a wall that just about blocks Rosie’s desk, and Rosie, from view. Martin, stepping out of the library with his armful of books he knows are probably not going to contain what he needs, nearly drops them, frozen in his footsteps.

Because that has to be the table, right? It can’t be anything else. But this? This is too early. Martin remembers the date. He’s been poring over the timeline Jon had given him since he got here. This is more than a _week_ early, and he doesn’t know if that’s just alternate dimension fuckery or if he accidentally changed something, but the box is here and that box contains the table and the table will—

He feels eyes on him, more than the usual pressure of the Eye, and looks up to find Breekon-or-Hope grinning at him. It isn’t an unpleasant grin. Nor is it particularly pleasant. It’s...It’s what you’d expect. Even looking right at Breekon-or-Hope’s face, he finds descriptions sliding off of it. The words that come to mind are wrong, too much or too little, except for just that: What you’d expect.

The other half of Breekon and Hope is facing Rosie, though both of them are talking to her, starting one thought and finishing another. Rosie has her customer service smile on so tight it might snap, her shoulders inching up to her ears every other word. _Of course_ he makes his way towards her. 

“Martin, hello,” she says, with a relief that makes his chest clench. He shouldn’t be interfering. Had told himself, over and over, can’t interfere with the big things, can’t draw attention, just nudge from the sidelines and hope for the best, breathe, delay, buy time.

“Hi, Rosie.” Then he pivots with an easy smile of his own to Breekon and Hope. “Hello, can I help you?”

Now both halves are looking at him. 

“Just got a delivery.”

“Magnus Institute.”

“Says right here.”

And the clipboard, again, presented for inspection. The concept of a delivery man is here to make a delivery, all affairs are in order, and the prickling at the back of his neck and his sense of _nonowrongno_ are just in his head. 

“Where from?” Martin asks, just to be contrarian.

“S’all right here.”

“Just the delivery men, us.”

“Now.”

“Y’were saying?”

“Bout Artefact Storage?”

Rosie wilts under their renewed attention, gestures vaguely to her left. “Oh, it was just through, um…” She hesitates, glancing to Martin. Gauging whether he feels the same unease, perhaps, or trying to get a second opinion. 

Can’t draw attention, can’t do big things, can’t change too much. But maybe...maybe he can at least tell the researchers what to expect. That’s knowledge he could reasonably have, right? Statement of Amy Patel, that was an early one, so if he just sticks around long enough until they open the box, it’s no leap he could recognise the table, not strange he’d warn the researchers. Maybe even convince them to lock it away. He vaguely remembers Elias told Jon to destroy it, so it might just work. He’s still trying to pretend he’s a normal boss who cares about his employees, after all.

Martin pushes on a smile, has practiced often enough by now that it doesn’t feel in danger of sliding off when he isn’t paying attention. He tilts his head to where Artefact Storage is and says. “I’ll show you the way.”

*

“It’s the table, Jon.”

“I...know?”

“No, I mean that’s the explanation we’ve been looking for. The table got here, and _Martin_ just happened to be ready to invite these supernatural delivery men into—”

“ _Please,_ not this again, Sasha. I thought you were, I don’t know...friends again...? Assistants’ Night Out and all that?”

“I thought I might get more out of him if he got drunk, but that was _before_ he invited the _people-replacing table_ into the Institute. What did he say when you asked him about it earlier?”

“He said he got a bad feeling about the delivery men and went to help Rosie. Recognised the name Breekon and Hope on the form and so hung around to see what was in the box, recognised that from the statement, reached the same conclusion we did, and recommended that the researchers lock it away.”

“See? He wants it kept safe. If we already know what it does, it should be destroyed.”

“Because we are not in the business of _destroying_ _information_ , Sasha… Admittedly, Elias did recommend that as well, but luckily he phrased it as more of a suggestion, and said that Martin’s idea to keep it under lock and key was the next best thing. You’re jumping to entirely baseless conclusions. Martin...may have been acting a bit strange since the Prentiss affair, yes, but it _was_ quite the ordeal.”

“It’s not just that he’s been acting strange—look, I went with Tim to his flat, yeah? And it’s just...utterly gross. This...strange film over everything.”

“You said, yes.”

“Right, and that can be explained away as questionable personal hygiene while he was locked away. Fine, sure. But you know what was missing from the mess? Fabric.”

“I...what?”

“That’s what he said in his statement, right? _Every scrap of fabric_ he had to block the windows and door. There was none of that. Nothing blocking windows, nothing blocking the door. What, did he do the laundry before he ran out? Not as much trash as you’d expect from weeks of quarantine either.”

“So...so you think Martin found that table while he was doing field work and got replaced and then...started an entire worm narrative just to toy with us? Which coincided with our being plagued by said worms? Or was he working _with_ the worms—that was your last theory, wasn’t it?”

“We don’t know how these things work, Jon. What we _do_ know is that the statements that go on tape are strange, and that Artefact Storage has plenty to prove the existence of the supernatural, so don’t sit there and pretend it’s all nonsense. If he’s some supernatural entity, or he’s been, I don’t know, _possessed_? Then why shouldn’t one weird supernatural thing work with another one?”

“Alright, alright, just calm d—”

“ _Don’t_.”

“...Sorry. Have you... Let’s treat this like a statement, then. Are there any...friends, family you could ask? Neighbours?”

“Neighbours didn’t notice anything and, unsurprisingly, I couldn’t get any usable CCTV from the building or its entrance. There _is_ a chippy across the street from his building, though, whose owner is convinced she saw Martin returning to the building the day _after_ he came running into the Archives.”

“But no proof.”

“No. But he did go out that day. Which is strange, isn’t it? If you’ve been terrorised by worms.”

“Or perfectly reasonable, due to the fact he’d been trapped indoors for two weeks and also did, in fact, need some items in order to live here....What about family?”

“Just his mum. I called the care home and they confirmed more or less what Martin’s been telling us over drinks.”

“So your evidence thus far is a suspicious lack of fabric and trash, and the word of the owner of a chip shop, and on that you’ve decided that Martin has been replaced by a...supernatural entity.”

“There’s still the CO2 thing. And his appearing out of nowhere. _And_ what Gerry said.”

“A coincidence, confusion, and the word of a man who was suspected of murder and was involved with Leitners. Sasha…”

“Fine. If it’s more concrete evidence you want, I can get it for you. But you’ll have to help me.”

“What...sort of help do you need…?”

“I’ve already searched his desk—”

“ _Sasha._ ”

“—and there was nothing useful. Nothing relevant on his computer either, but I haven’t had the time to go into document storage. Even when he goes out for lunch with Tim, he’s always back way too soon, and whenever I make an excuse to grab something, he comes with. Not you, though. He lets you nap there.”

“I wasn’t—Alright, once. He let me nap there once, _due to extenuating circumstances_. And I am _not_ going to...pretend to need a nap so I can go rifling through Martin’s personal effects. The strangest thing there is that stuffed toy with its eyes torn out and that is plenty for me, thank you.”

“Then just keep him out of the Archives for a bit and _I’ll_ do it. Look, Jon, if there’s any _proof_ it’ll be in there, and if there isn’t—”

“If there isn’t, you drop it.”

“...I’ll drop it. But if there _is…_ ”

“Honestly, why a shapeshifting _monster_ would have proof of its monstrousness is beyond me, let alone keep it on hand. But if this will get you to stop...Yes, alright. I’ll - I’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, this chapter wouldn't be anywhere near where it is without abbyleaf101, rustkid, and smallhorizons. Ty for listening to me ramble and grumble about edits I need to make after every episode drop. <33


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing is: Jon is a terrible liar. 

The Archives are, at first blush, painfully average. Colder than anywhere else in the Institute, yes, by dint of being underground, and that’s a lifesaver in the summer, but not any darker. To make up for the lack of windows, the lights are set at frequent intervals and are irritatingly bright. The floors are carpeted in washed-out beige and the desks, the shelves, the cabinets, all variations on the theme of light, bright, and half-hearted. 

Martin’s first time meeting the others, Tim had declared this place too painfully boring for him to be seen in, and he and Sasha had more or less bulldozed Martin into helping liven things up with the judicious application of colourful files, fun stationery, as many punny posters as Sasha could find and, yes, plants. With Tim and Sasha (and their personalities) taking up space, it almost works. Without them, the cheerfulness is artificial, oppressive.

And without even Jon’s presence in the office beyond…

It feels uncomfortably like that in-between time, when Sasha was gone and Tim was gone and the only thing Martin had left to hold onto was all-but-braindead Jon. It’s one thing to be in an empty Archives in the very early morning or very late at night, but middle of the day? It’s unsettling.

Not surprising, no. He’d figured he’d find the place empty when he came back from the wild goose chase Jon had sent him and Tim on, hence Jon sending them on said wild goose chase. But unsettling nonetheless. The familiarity of the emptiness aches. But at least he has the anger to take the edge off of that.

The thing is: Jon is a terrible liar. 

He can have all his ducks in a row, his excuses thought up, but as soon as he actually has to _say_ the line he starts tripping over it, and god forbid you ask him a question he hadn’t prepared for. Or even one he _had_ prepared for, frankly. If you just ask in a _slightly_ pointed tone, it all crumples. The way he stammered and back-tracked his way through Tim asking why both him and Martin had to go _together_ to follow up on this statement made that very clear, taking care of whatever brief idea Martin might have had that Jon was sending them out together for their safety. 

The thing is: Martin is very tired of Jon lying to him. 

Being underestimated has had its uses. It means he gets overlooked, yes, and sometimes people decide to make his decisions for him, like he’s too stupid to make his own, but it’s also meant they don’t see him coming. It’s one thing to be underestimated by Elias or Peter, however. Another entirely by someone who has Seen you. And yes, yes, this Jon isn’t that Jon, but it’s the same fucking dumbassery just with a few years in between and, look, the cold annoyance climbing up his neck doesn’t exactly listen to reason. 

Martin could have called Jon out on it then and there, but what would have been the point? Easier to lie right back. Yes, Jon. Sure, Jon. We’ll go see that first thing tomorrow, Jon. And Martin was rather better at it. Then leave and tell Tim, hm, that pervasive fear of worms and being attacked was maybe not going to make this feasible, Martin was going to head back, would Tim cover for him? And here he is, and the Archives are empty, which means Jon is probably doing something stupid and he wanted none of them around to see it, or stop him. 

Although...Strange that he didn’t send Sasha out with Tim. And—Martin tugs her chair aside, leans down a bit to check—her purse is still tucked under her desk. Whatever she’s doing, it isn’t outside of the institute. 

Which means maybe Jon didn’t send her on a wild goose chase at all. Just him and Tim. 

The fact Jon might be doing said stupid thing with Sasha is a small consolation. They’d thought of her as the rational, reasonable one so often in the— _after_ , that the truth of her had gotten a little blurred around the edges, smoothed out. 

Martin just hopes it isn’t the table. They have no reason to go poking around it, right? 

Or, god, or has Elias played a different hand? 

Or maybe the Web, levelling the playing field now that it has an unexpectedly knowledgeable player?

Alright. Calm, now, think. Most likely locations: Artefact Storage to get to the table, or...possibly the tunnels? If he discovered them early? Either way, Martin knows better than to go charging in without supplies, and because walking around outside the Institute with a corkscrew, knife, and torch invites questions, all he has on him is the corkscrew. The rest are in his bag, which means he’s detouring into document storage first.

Martin is fast but silent, and always takes a moment to scan the hallways for signs of anything hostile. The worst offender is the light pouring out of the sliver of an entrance, the door to document storage slightly ajar. When he gets closer, Martin sees a little bit of Jon, twisted around to talk.

Jon is also a terrible lookout, apparently, when he doesn’t have an all-seeing eye telling him everything.

Martin feels a combination of things in rapid succession: relief, embarrassment, worry, _dread_ , and finally the dull resignation that has him fading into nothing. On purpose, this time. Jon can’t be _that_ bad of a lookout, and Martin needs to get a closer look. 

Pulling on the Lonely to hide himself feels a lot like pulling down a dome of fogged-up glass, specifically the sort you get when it’s raining outside. The world beyond feels just a little unreal, unreachable, cold to the touch, and if he isn’t diligent about wiping himself a small window to see through, he might lose it entirely. 

Luckily, this nonsense is a very good motivator to keep wiping away at that window. The calm swish of water can’t reach him when he’s listening to Jon hiss at Sasha to, “Nevermind the boxes. Try the backpack.”

And Sasha, not bothering to whisper, says, “You said you’d only do this once, so I might as well be thorough. Due diligence, right, Jon?”

Jon grimaces, looking back to the corridor and right through Martin. “Just...hurry, please.”

*

They don’t hurry. 

And they find everything.

There is poetry in his bag, on the backs of those useless, useless maps. It isn’t all about Jon, but when it is there’s no subtlety about it, only the sunshine glee of colour returned to the world. There are three knives, one of which he keeps under the cot with the CO2, and the spare corkscrew, because of course he needs a spare. 

There are the statements he hasn’t managed to tuck away again yet, a pattern of spiders and webs and impossible people far as the eye can see.

There is the polaroid, folded, heavily creased, which Martin is too hurt by and too angry with _his_ Jon to carry around but had hidden nonetheless, tucked carefully in a tear in the inside of his bag. _This_ Jon just looks at it dumbly. 

And there are the tapes. 

They don’t have a recorder with them and none have spontaneously manifested yet, or at least none that Jon and Sasha can see, so they don’t play them. But they don’t need to. The labels, most of them, are in Jon’s handwriting and, more importantly, the ones made before Jude Perry’s handshake are _recognisable_ as Jon’s handwriting by these two.

“I...I don’t remember making these,” Jon says. 

“Take it you don’t remember posing for that picture either,” Sasha replies. She is calm as anything, the satisfaction of research concluded, suspicions confirmed. Martin hears her tucking the tapes into his bag, or maybe that’s just the surf. 

“No…Photoshop, I presume.”

“ _Jon_.”

“I’m not saying his...apparent fixation isn’t somewhat unsettling but—”

“I’m not even going to argue about this. We’ll get back to your office, listen to these tapes, and maybe then you’ll stop burying your head in the sand.”

The door opens properly, and Martin realises he can’t feel his feet, can’t feel where he ends and the frosted glass begins, and gets the dull sense of _oh_ , might have been here too long. He can’t move away but that doesn’t matter because Sasha walks right through. 

Behind her, Jon casts a look around. He’s confused. He’s lost. He follows her, and then Martin is alone. 

Why is he surprised? He’s been alone for a while, or maybe for always. 

It’s so cold here.

*

A tape recorder turns on.

It’s the first real sound he is aware of. _Click_ , whirr, waiting. 

The next is his name, or he thinks it’s his name. He feels it more than hears it, a sort of niggling tug at the back of his mind. He thinks, _Jon?_ before the cold-wash realisation it can’t be Jon, not the right Jon. That Jon left him here, didn’t he? Left him to worms and fog and _responsibility_ to fix it all from the start. The thought doesn’t come with the usual sharp spikes in his stomach, none of the angry heat prickling in his eyes. It comes with nothing at all. 

That can’t be right.

He feels his name again and sees, for the first time, a door. Not a yellow one, just plain wood, dark and inoffensive as everything else. Except for the scratches at the bottom of the frame. 

Click, whirr, waiting. Footsteps. Pacing. Behind the door? 

There are voices behind the door, two or three or...no. That’s the tapes. No one real is there. 

No, but the footsteps. Voices on a tape don’t have footsteps, don’t pace in agitation—fast, back and forth. He thinks of hands shaking out nervous energy, doesn’t know why for a moment until he hears a bitten-off curse and then, oh, Tim. 

No, Tim is dead.

No, no, that’s the other Tim. There’s a Tim who isn’t dead. He sounds upset.

He recognises the rest of the voices too. Sasha, the real one, not the dead one and not the other one. Jon, the wrong one. And. Jon. The right one. Jon, on tape. Jon, frightened and exhausted and—

The door handle is warm under his hand. 

He has a hand now, look at that. He can even push the door handle down.

Behind the door, there are people and there is sudden silence except for the tape recorder, whirring, with Jon’s voice. There is light, harsh, and he doesn’t squint fast enough so it makes him tear up. There is Jon and Sasha and Tim, all frozen, looking at him in various stages of confusion and suspicion. 

And they need him, or he needs them, and he needs to get back to _his_ Jon, because he’s damned if he’s going to let Elias take the world from them, whether this one or the other. 

“So,” Martin says. His voice feels strange, too loud and too rough in his ears. He doesn't know how long it's been—weeks, days, hours, might even have been minutes—and it doesn't matter. He clears his throat, clears the frost away. “I’m guessing you...have questions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't notice how short this one was until I was posting it, oops. If it's any consolation, though, the next chapter is, uh, going to be a doozy.
> 
> Much thanks to abbyleaf101, rustkid, and smallhorizons, as ever.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is that me?” says Jon, and then faster, frantic, “Is that what I turn into? That can’t be me, I can’t—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for worms, so many worms, the _most_ worms. Also, the judicious use of a corkscrew. 
> 
> Strap in, friends. This one's a doozy.

It’s Jon who moves first. Jon who comes around his desk and grabs him, pulls him inside with a harsh, “ _Sit._ ” Even through his sleeve, that’s a warmth Martin wasn’t expecting, doesn’t know what to do with. So he just follows and sits, as told. He makes an effort to straighten up, press his back against the chair. Firm, solid. He can feel its angles dig into his shoulder blades. He can feel. And that’s good. 

On the tape, his Jon gasps through apologies while Not-Sasha taunts in the background. Sasha turns it off decisively then folds her arms, leaning back against Jon’s desk. Jon doesn’t sit down, instead joining her to stand in front of Martin, and Tim, somewhat more reluctant, joins them. Together, they loom over him. 

It isn’t as intimidating as they think it is. Or, at least, not for the reasons they think.

Look at them, a solid wall. Against him. 

But Martin doesn’t have to play at being his old self anymore, so he doesn’t need to show the anxiety curdling in his gut. He only blinks up at them, blank. Waiting.

When it becomes evident they’re watching, waiting on _him_ in return, Martin asks, “Are you listening to them in order?” His voice gets less scratchy with each word. By the end, he sounds like himself. He thinks. “They won’t make much sense if they’re not in order. There are notes that go with them, too. Help, ah...clarify things, or...mention some events that we couldn’t get the tapes for. Or that weren’t ours to tell, I guess.”

Jon says, “Who is _we?_ ” at the same time Sasha says, “Like what?” And then, soft, at the end of it, Tim’s, “Who are you?”

Then they look at each other and Jon says, “Yes, I suppose that’s the more pressing question. Who are you? _What_ are you?”

“I’m Martin. Martin Blackwood. I guess that’s hard to believe right now but...that’s who I am. And I’m, um, human?”

Sasha shakes her head. “Let’s try this another way, then. Are you the Martin Blackwood who worked here _before_ the Prentiss attack?”

Martin takes a deep breath, feels a bit of tension unfurl. “No.”

“What do you _mean,_ no?” Tim immediately has a fistful of his hoodie. “What did you do with Martin? _Our_ Martin? What the fuck are you?”

Remaining calm in the face of all this probably isn’t helping them see him as human, but he’s seen worse and, frankly, he’s tired. “I didn’t do anything. He was already gone by the time I arrived.”

“ _Gone_? What do you mean, go—”

“Tim…” Sasha says, soft.

“For what it’s worth…” Martin should stay quiet. Let them have their moment, not draw attention back at himself. “I’m sorry.”

Tim’s hand tightens in his hoodie. He glares down at Martin, tense and wound up, and Martin decides he can probably handle allowing Tim one punch. Tim deserves that much for being lied to. More than that, he’ll put a stop to it, but one is fine. 

But Tim doesn’t even do that much. He deflates, all at once. Doesn’t let go of him, but his hold on Martin’s hoodie is limp. Toothless.

After a beat of silence, Jon picks up the thread.

“You, ah, you said he was - when you arrived. Arrived from _where_ , exactly?”

Martin gestures at Jon’s desk. “You have tapes in your voice—in all our voices, dated with that same stupid method. What do you think?”

“Well, you can hardly be from the _future_ if Martin is d—uh.”

“Dead. You can say it, Jon,” Tim says. “No use being delicate about it now, is there?”

“...Right. I’m...well. You can’t be from the future, if that’s what you’re claiming. And some of the details are different besides. Sasha had an entire statement here about someone named _Michael_. Whatever - _prank_ you’re playing at—”

Exasperated noises all around. Tim even lets go of Martin just to take a step away, and Sasha shakes her head. 

“Christ, Jon, _enough_ ,” Martin says, and surges to his feet. Jon takes a step back. “Things might be different here but not that different. You wouldn’t have started working for the Magnus Institute if you didn’t believe, at least a little, and this skeptic thing isn’t fooling _anyone_. What, you think I just...hired voice actors that sounded like you to mess with your head?”

“It’s - certainly more plausible than - than you being from, what, an _alternate dimension_?” The air-quotes around that are palpable.

“See, this? This is why I didn’t bring you the tapes. I never _asked_ you to believe it. _You’re_ the ones who went snooping through my things and found them, so the least you could do is go through them all.”

After the frost and fog, the heat of annoyance is an overwhelming thing. Martin rolls his lips back, tastes the sharpness waiting on his tongue. He shouldn’t say it. Grimaces. He will, though. Jon’s scoffing at him and _his_ Jon had said this would happen, hadn’t he? Had included certain tapes in the collection for a reason. Martin had protested there were other things he could bring up—the dreams, right? He might have started having the dreams by now. And the compulsion. Martin gets it now, though.

He doesn’t like it. But this is one thing Jon can’t brush aside. A story never told before. It will _hurt_ , and he hates it, but it’s proof. It’s...It’ll stop him arguing so they can get past that point and onto the others, the more important ones.

So Martin exhales slowly, steeling himself, and says, “Did you see the one labelled _A Guest for Mr. Spider,_ Jon?”

Jon’s face is very carefully expressionless, but his jaw is clenched. Oh, he’s seen Mr. Spider, alright. Martin has a brief pang for the Jon that was, eight years old and scared and alone, although honestly it was the stuff _around_ the Leitner encounter that hurt the worst when he first heard it. 

Gently, Sasha says, “There’s stuff about a circus too, Tim.”

“Of fucking course there is.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Martin says. “I wasn’t trying to deceive you or - or hide things from you, I just—”

“Knew we’d freak out and either not believe you or make things worse?” says Sasha, an eyebrow raised.

“Pretty much. There’s...other things to consider but, um...It might be easier to let the tapes do the explaining for me. I wasn’t even supposed to be here when you found them, honestly, and this is...”

“No? Back to your dimension, was it? Just...popped through for a warning and home in time for tea?” 

There are the beginnings of hysteria, just edging Jon’s voice. Martin can only shrug.

“I mean...yeah? That was the plan, at least. But then I...found him. Other Martin, I mean. And...knew I couldn’t leave you without a warning, and then the way home was shut, and…”

And this. 

For all his practicing in his head, all the explanations he’d prepared feel flat, powdery pale on his tongue, and he swallows them down. How do you justify to people that their friend died and you’ve been pretending to be him for months? Especially when it’s clear you’ve become closer to them than he had. 

Or. Well. Maybe not Sasha. In hindsight, those friendly questions over drinks have a probing cast to them. She’s been sniffing after him for a while now. He thinks he can see why Gertrude thought she would be the natural pick for Archivist. 

Nonetheless, the words Martin might have said feel hollow, so he just doesn’t. Lets the silence speak for him.

“You mean you’re stuck here?” Sasha shuffles through the piles on Jon’s desk, scanning through what look like statements. Probably the ones Martin had been going through. “And that has something to do with these...doors and fractals and—spiders?” She looks up dubiously at the last. “I get the doors. That makes sense. But spiders? Unless that’s what you’re trying to warn us about.”

“Um. Both? Sort of.”

“It would help if you could stop with the cryptic bullshit,” Tim says. “You know. Actually deliver the warning you’re supposed to be here for.” 

Martin had figured he’d get _that_ Tim when it came to light, but it still stings a bit. He takes a deep breath and—no, telling him to calm down would probably just make it worse, so...He’ll let it slide this time. “I’d hoped not to do this here but...guess that’s too late, so might as well. It’s - there’s a lot of it, and it’s pretty...well. Not pretty. I guess. Heh. Um, all I ask is that you don’t interrupt me with any “reasonable explanations,” Jon, please, and that we try and get it all in one go. Or...at least, if you need to go anywhere, make sure none of us are alone?”

“And why is that?” Jon says, cautious.

“Well. The first time someone tried to explain things to Jon in my world, they got murdered in his office when he stepped out for a smoke and then he got framed for it. So...yeah.”

Martin takes advantage of the resulting stunned silence to reach between Sasha and Jon and sift through the tapes. He finds the one he needs, and switches out the one that had been in the recorder.

“I promise I’ll start from the beginning after this, but since we’re on the topic, I figure there’s something you should hear. It’ll make the rest...easier, I guess, to swallow,” he says, and clicks on Elias’ confession to the murder of Gertrude Robinson and Jurgen Leitner. 

*

The revelation Jurgen Leitner might currently be living in secret tunnels under the institute that connect to an underground prison complex turned ritual setting (and wow, if that isn’t a mouthful) coming right on the heels of the fact their boss is an evil mastermind who murdered his predecessor seems to break Jon entirely. 

“Of course… Of course, it all comes back to him, doesn’t it…? _Leitner._ ” he says, laughter lacing his voice. He has his fingers splayed over his face and, between them, his eyes are wide. His hand is shaking. “I assume we have him to thank for the worms as well.”

“Actually, he seems to have just been a sad little old man,” Martin says, but it doesn’t look like Jon’s listening. And Tim, of course, is more interested in the fact Smirke’s becoming relevant again, and smiles grimly when Martin confirms that yeah, Smirke’s buildings are pretty spooky and that’s by design. 

Sasha nods to the recorder. “On the tape, the...Other Jon, he asked if he was human. Was he? What was he turning into? Did it work?”

Which...isn't what he would have expected her to ask about, given. Well. This was when they'd found out Sasha had been dead for a whole year too. Replaced. It seems none of them want to touch that yet, though, so he'll leave it be. 

“Yes...yes, I’m afraid it did.” As to _what..._ The word that comes to mind is Archivist, but they wouldn’t get it. Not the dark of his eyes ( _and eyes and eyes and eyes_ ) or the weight of inescapable truth in his voice. The electric dread. The joy. The trembling. And he doesn’t want them to get it either. Doesn’t know if they’d believe in the human still underneath. “He was still Jon, though. Still...trying his best. Just...You ever noticed how it feels like we’re being watched here? Jon, I _know_ you feel it when you’re recording the real statements.”

After a beat, Jon replies with a breathless, “Yes.”

“Well. We sort of are? Not - not just Elias, I mean.” Selling them on the Jonah Magnus reveal will have to wait. Martin is sure there must have been a recorder listening in when Elias did his dramatic entrance in the Panopticon, but if there was he doesn’t have the tape, and needless to say neither he nor Jon were willing to risk any word of the ritual that brought _the Change_ into the world. 

More important is to get them up to speed with the rest. Elias being a body-hopping Victorian prick is less important than how he serves an eldritch eyeball.

“There’s…There are things out there that we don’t understand. But it’s not just random unrelated spookiness. You’ve noticed patterns in the statements, right? The ones that go on tape.”

“Like things that are pretending to be people,” Sasha says. 

“Filth,” Jon murmurs. “Insects. Spiders.”

“Dunno, guys, I think you’re sleeping on all the weird meat ones,” Tim says. 

“Yeah, and there’s more. There’s the dark and what hides in it, there’s burning and loss. There’s a sudden crushing realisation of...space? How big the world is? Or the sky, or the sea. And then there’s just crushing, y’know. Enclosed spaces. Senseless violence. Being hunted or...” He swallows. “Isolated. Or - or being watched. Having your every secret exposed and dissected and…”

Sasha’s starting to glance at various corners, inching closer to Tim. Tim doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re probably not about to tell us it’s just that this place is haunted, right?”

“‘Fraid not.”

“Fuck. So - so there’s _things_ out there, and they’re organised, they’re working together to _actively_ hunt people down and...one is employing us. That’s what you’re implying here.” 

“And what he’s implying is absurd, Tim. We don’t _hunt_ _people down._ We are researchers. Scholars. Just because people come to _us_ with their nonsense—”

“Hey, Jon.” Because while Martin does find it admirable Jon managed to hold back this long, it’s still exhausting. “Isn’t it funny how all of those statements that go on tape are so coherent and well-written? _All_ of them? Even the ones given in person?”

“If they’re in person they can hardly be _well-written_.”

“You know what I mean. And isn’t it weird how you sort of lose yourself in those statements when you’re reading them? You go through dozens a week, nothing new or remarkable about them, but if just one needs to go on tape you’re doing the voices and everything… And they’re tiring, aren’t they? They take a lot out of you.”

Jon is stubbornly silent after that, his hand curled over the downturn of his mouth, refusing to confirm it. He stares through Martin and doesn’t even react when Sasha takes him by the shoulders and guides him back to his chair. 

As she sits him down, she says, “So even if we’re not hunting people down, we’re still...feeding? It? Whatever _it_ is?”

“The Eye, yeah. Or Beholding, the Ceaseless Watcher, you get the idea.”

Tim mutters, “Can’t believe I joined a cult and it doesn’t even have a cool name.”

“What’s Gerry, then? You’ve said all these categories, these...things. What thing does Gerry belong to? What does it...eat?”

“That’s the Spiral. Or the Distortion, I guess. Far as I can figure, it feeds off of confusion. You not being able to trust your senses, that sort of thing. There’s...actually, he might be able to explain it better. Just, um…” 

And sifts through the tapes again, with a brief twinge of annoyance at the fact he’d had them organised, before, but there aren’t that many of them and he soon finds it.

“Is that his voice? The same Gerry you spoke to?” 

Jon looks like he’s begging for Sasha to say no, give him another hoax angle to latch onto or something, and crumples a bit when she nods.

“Although...why does he sound like that?”

“He’s dead,” Martin says. “Jon found him in a, ah, skin book Gertrude had bound him to.”

“Guess you were right, Sash,” Tim says. “That _does_ sound stone-cold.”

“Told you.”

Martin fast forwards past the statement itself. He feels a tad guilty about it, mind, but Gerry Keay isn’t dead and bound to a skin book in this world, so maybe that’s less disrespectful to his memory here. Or something. 

He has to rewind a bit to get the explanation from the start, then he sets the recorder on the desk and, while the others listen, gathers the rest of the tapes to figure out what order they’ll go in after this. He ignores Gertrude’s tape to Sasha in favour of when Tim and Jon talked about not being able to quit—that’s the bit that’s important from that tape, anyway, and now that he’s met the actual Sasha he has the uncomfortable sense she might take Gertrude’s advice a bit too seriously. Then Eric Delano’s? It seems only fair to let them know there’s a way out. 

Then Martin glances up and sees the spider. Perched on the wall just to the left of Jon’s head, it’s small and spindly, dark and unnaturally still. Like it wants to be noticed. 

Unfortunately, it is. 

Jon flinches with a quiet sound of disgust. Martin has just long enough to say, “Jon, don’t—” before Jon sends a book crashing onto it. The collapsing shelf surprises them both and Martin jumps, already reaching for his corkscrew. Jon just huffs a laugh, sounding halfway between relieved and embarrassed. 

“Thought this would have been made of sturdier stuff,” he says, glancing back at them. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, I thought you were pro-spider murder now.”

On the tape, the ghost of Gerard Keay says, _“Yeah. Being manipulated or - puppeted. The worry you’re caught in a trap you can’t see.”_

Christ, but the Web can be so smug. 

Martin grabs Jon’s arm, pulling him back. “There are fire extinguishers in those folders—last shelf, to the left. Everyone grab one—grab _two_ and get out.”

“Why are they in _folders_? Were you _in my office_?” 

“You want to do this _now_ , Jon? Where did you get those tapes from again?”

“That - that’s different.”

“I thought that was supposed to be an outer wall,” Sasha says. “I...have a bad feeling about this.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“ _Out!_ Go!”

Tim’s the only one who moves, extinguisher in hand already, but he isn’t going anywhere without them and waits, half-turned, near the door. Jon and Sasha watch the hole in the wall. 

From what he remembers, it didn’t _start_ bad. Jon and Sasha had time to get out of his office in the other world, time to yell for Martin to get the CO2, time to try before they were overwhelmed. Which _also_ means they might have time enough to get out of the damned Institute. Assuming they ever move.

“Right. Sorry about this.” 

And that’s about all the warning Martin gives before hoisting Jon over his shoulder. Jon’s all leg and nothing else, but he puts that to good use as he kicks in protest or maybe just surprise. He manages to hit the wall again in the process, and the desk, and Martin, but Martin maintains his hold. 

“We’ll just have to finish this on the move. Prentiss is coming through there any minute.”

“Let me _go_! The tapes! Sasha, grab the rest of the tapes!”

Unsurprisingly, Jon has managed to snag the recorder in passing, if Gerard Keay’s voice from somewhere down by his arse is any indication. 

He grabs a fire extinguisher himself, awkward as it is to hold it with Jon over his shoulder, moves past Tim and out of the doorway. He just has to trust they’ll follow. 

“At least turn the damned thing off,” Martin says. “If you need to record, there should be room at the end of it. Or - record over it, I don’t care. The tapes were really just proof. And a guideline, I guess, since I wasn’t supposed to be here. But I _am_ here, and I can tell you everything in them as soon as we get out.”

Nonetheless, Sasha has the tell-tale clatter of tapes when she hurries to catch up, his backpack slung over her shoulder and a cry of, “Worms!”

“Up the stairs, outside, c’mon. Quick! Before they make it through the vents.”

They’re lucky, really, that this happened now.

For one, it’s late. Most of the Institute has already left for the day, although they throw the fire alarm on the way to take care of what few stragglers might have remained. For another, they’re together. Jon could have driven a hole in the wall while Martin was out with Tim for lunch, and they’d have returned to—

So this is good. Great, even.

The sounds of Prentiss and wormsong are closer behind them than Martin would have liked, sure, and his lungs and legs are burning because that’s what happens when the laws of physics exist again and you’re carrying a whole adult man while running for both of your lives, but even that’s a sort of relief. Prentiss behind them is better than Prentiss in front of them, and if they can get up the stairs and _out_ of the Archives there’s somewhat less danger in being overwhelmed. 

Martin lets Jon down once they’re clear of the stairs and thankfully he’s gotten the hint and keeps moving. He doesn’t even stop to push his glasses from where they’ve slid down to the tip of his nose. The tape recorder is clutched tightly in his hand, and it’s turned on.

“She was - she can’t be moving. No one with that many...What _is_ she?”

“Avatar of the Corruption. Always nasty. Fire’s a good way to deal with them, according to statements. Concrete too. But we don’t have either of those handy, so...”

That’s helpfully punctuated by Tim CO2ing the hell out of pursuing worms. “What about circuses? There an avatar of circuses?”

“Is that me?” says Jon, and then faster, frantic, “Is that what I turn into? That can’t be me, I can’t—”

They make it almost all the way to the reception desk, it’s _in sight_ and then there’s the door, so close, before a wall of worms comes pouring out of a vent, forcing them down another hallway. Every attempt to circle back that way gets blocked, but between the Institute slowing the worms down and their fire extinguishers, they haven’t gotten wormed yet. But the _yet_ is doing a lot of heavy-lifting here, and the meeting room they’ve holed themselves in for the moment isn’t going to be safe for long.

“No, no, no, they’re trying to box us in. Fuck. Think, Blackwood.”

The fire alarm makes that very difficult, setting his teeth on edge and his thoughts scattering whenever he has some semblance of order. 

Their best bet for hunkering down and waiting this out had been document storage, but that would have meant leaving Prentiss to the guards and custodians to deal with first thing in the morning, and that seems unspeakably cruel. Elias would hardly have cared, but they’re not Elias, and Martin refuses on principle. Or they could have taken the tunnels, like last time. And then, like last time, gotten separated and lost and subsequently wormed.

And he couldn’t have left them in document storage and just headed out himself to activate the fire suppression system. Martin doesn’t know if suffocation is better or worse than the worms, but neither is great.

He thinks, wistfully, of the protective gear he’d ordered that should have been here soon. The plans and backup plans that had still hinged on things happening more or less at the right time. Sure, the table had been delivered early, but a week or so is still in the right range. He could’ve worked with a week or so.

Hadn’t thought of getting found out. Or the Web. Or maybe this was Elias, maybe he’d known from the first second Martin stepped here. 

“There’s Artefact Storage,” Sasha says, and Martin’s eyes snap open.

“No.”

“It’s the safest room on this floor. I worked there. I know the sort of precautions they have in place to keep things from getting in.”

“But nothing to keep the things already _in_ it from—just, just please trust me, alright?”

Tim scoffs, but Jon turns large dark eyes on him. He says, almost too soft to hear, “Something happened. In Artefact Storage. The...there’s a tape, where I’m - where he’s running from something. That's - When they, when they said...Sasha...”

Martin has to swallow. “Yeah...Yeah, I’m not too keen on a repeat. At least we - we can see the worms coming, and we know how to fight them. But there’s plenty in Artefact Storage we can’t even begin to _know_ , let alone fight.”

“Well, we can’t stay _here_.”

“Yeah…”

Still with an eye towards the door, Tim leaves his post there to settle beside Martin against the wall. Not as close as he might have this morning, but it’s still a gesture he appreciates, and wonders if Tim is doing that on purpose. 

“How did it go the first time, then? You don’t look too worse for wear, and Jon was on those tapes, so clearly he survives.”

“He does. Did. I mean, I was supposed to survive my first encounter with Prentiss too, so...clearly things aren’t happening the same.” And Martin watches, sidelong and subtle as he can, as Tim straightens up a little at the reminder. It’s a little satisfying. He doesn’t know why. “We holed up in document storage—me, Sasha, and Jon, I mean. You’d - you’d gone out to lunch. Hadn’t known. Then when you came back, Sasha tackled you, you got split up...You headed in the tunnels, Sasha went and found Elias and… You'd managed to find an axe somewhere? Scared the shit out of me and Jon, breaking through document storage to get us. But then _we_ got split up down there and...you and Jon got, um. A bit wormed.”

“Define _a bit_.”

“You didn’t get Prentissed, if that’s what you’re asking. Just...lasting scars and pain? Elias hit the manual override for the fire suppression system before it could get too bad.”

“And no Elias this time, so it’s down to us to do that, yeah?”

“No, it’s down to me. _You_ need to get out of here. It’s safest outside and you can stay together, and then I can get through the worms and get to the manual override before Prentiss escapes, hopefully.”

“And how is it you’re planning to get through the worms, exactly? I’m imagining you going Gas Rambo on them but, funny as that would be, there’s a whole lotta worms and just…” Tim seems to realise what it is he’s about to say, falters a moment, only to push through grimly anyway. “Just the one you.”

“Besides, you keep saying we should stay together,” Sasha adds. Like he belongs to that _we_. Martin knows better than to believe it at this point, and ignores how that thought nestles under his sternum anyway. 

“We should. Till we get out. And then _you_ stay together while I get this sorted. Do you _want_ to get wormed?”

“No, but I don’t much fancy letting _you_ get wormed before we have a chance to finish that conversation. You never actually got to the warning bit, you know.”

“I kn—fuck, the vent.” 

And a pause to manage the trickle of worms, as one does. 

“I wanted to do it properly—build up to it, y’know, so it actually made sense, but since these worms keep deciding to interrupt at the important bits... Long story short, the world ended. Like, really ended. Time doesn’t exist anymore, and neither does...I don’t know, physics, biology, distance, the laws of the universe. The sun. _Tea._ ”

“Oh no, not the _tea_.”

“Look, Tim, I know tea is a small thing in the grand scheme of...uh, things, but what I mean is - even tea changed, even the small things, things you don’t think a weird eldritch apocalypse would touch. _Everything_ changed.”

“Assuming that’s…” Jon shakes his head. “How did it - How do we stop it from happening?”

“By stopping Elias. But, right now? By making sure none of you get marked by these worms.”

Jon laughs on the exhale, laces some of it in his words when he says, “And by none of us, you mean me?” Martin hears the self-deprecation around the edges, sees the hairline cracks between the letters. 

“No, Jon, I mean none of you. Fact of the matter is...You’re not some horrible Chosen One. If you weren’t the Archivist, Elias would have used someone else. And right now, all of you have had an encounter with something that’s marked you. The less he has to work with, the better.”

“We’re not letting you go,” Sasha says, like she didn’t hear a word. God, had she always been this stubborn? She seems almost affronted by his frustrated huff. “No, listen, you’re jumping dimensions, apparently, and appearing from thin air. You say you’re human, but it’s clear _you_ ’ _ve_ been marked by something as well.”

“Wait, what? I missed out on the superpowers talk?”

“Not a superpower, Tim. Just…”

He wants to grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them. Wants to say they could get killed, _had_ gotten killed, and not everyone who meets things like these gets to come in and make a statement about it. Wants to tell them not to be sodding heroes. 

But it’s never been heroism, has it? 

They need to _see_. 

Martin takes a deep breath. “Manual override is in the boiler room. Stay _close_.”

*

Turns out the only one trying to be a sodding hero is him. 

Look, if the worms are trying to box them in, then the only way forward is _through_. And, fuck, this would be so much easier if he were alone. If he just tipped back into the waiting fog, let the fogged glass take care of that disgusting squelching noise. No sounds there except for the sea, the sand. No smell but salt and cold. He can fall in, walk to the boiler room, be done with it. Better yet, why not pull Prentiss herself in? See how well _she_ can manage when all of her friends shrivel and die.

Assuming he wouldn’t just sit down on the sand and shrivel and die himself, assuming he could find the way out this time.

But Martin remembers the tunnels that day, remembers running, _so sure_ that Tim and Jon were just behind him, and the terror when he turned and they weren’t. That terror keeps his eyes on them, never more than a step ahead as they wind their way through open offices and crawling corridors, turning corners to avoid a new wave of worms when they can.

Unfortunately, four people clustered close together make for a pretty big target, especially when there is no one else left in the building. Four people clustered close together are also not very fast. And four fire extinguishers, all they have left, can only do so much. 

So of course he has to be a sodding hero about it. The door to the boiler room is _right there_ , he _saw_ it before this literal wave of worms decided to emerge, towering, teetering, or maybe pouring, direction isn’t clear and anyway not the _point_. They can’t turn back, they’re so close, they’ll never get a better chance.

Martin charges at the worms, screaming his way into some form of courage as he hoses his way through them. He starts from the top, the frothing boiling mass of them, feels the wave break over and past his legs and—

Worms don’t feel like anything at all, is the thing. You don’t feel their bite, only the squirming, and soon as they’re in you all the shaking stomping running in the world won’t get them out. And the _song..._

Martin is quick to blast the CO2 over his legs with the first tendrils of song in his ears, but has to lift it again to aim for the centre before they overwhelm him _there_. There are just too many. But if they’re congregating on him, curving around him, then maybe he can— _don’t think about face-down, floor, holes, alone, don’t—_

He reaches for the fog, the cool glass at his fingers, and finds Tim instead, muttering, “Fuck’s sake,” and adding his fire extringuisher to Martin’s. 

“Jon! Get in here! Sash, get behind him.” 

“Don’t—! You can’t get—”

“Shut up, Martin. I go high, you go low, and we can get through this.”

Even if Martin wanted to argue more, Jon is already crowding at his back and Sasha behind him, watching to make sure nothing else sneaks up on them, a triangle with Jon as its slightly spooked but nonetheless determined centre. He holds the nozzle of his fire extinguisher out between them and blasts through the middle.

And beyond the worms, there is the boiler room door. 

Still worms on the floor, of course, but those are slow under the weight of the Eye, Seen in isolation. And with them running, hand in hand in hand in hand, they just about make it. Sasha through the door first, then Jon, and Tim with a gentle shove to Martin’s back after them and then Tim.

The door is shut. It’s just them, and the boiler room, and the gentlest threads of song woven under his skin. 

Martin fumbles for his corkscrew and holds it out. The sight of it brings those relieved laughs and whoops to a sudden silent standstill. 

“There’s one in my leg, right one, I think. I - I can feel it? Hear it, really. S’weird, Jon never said anything about _hearing_ them but I guess he’d fallen unconscious by the time they were _really_ on him and then after that he wasn’t up to—”

Sasha takes the corkscrew and he sags gratefully against the wall. 

Trouser leg folded up, they can see the wriggling black tip of one worm, the outline of another already under. Sasha plunges the corkscrew after it and, more than the pain, it’s the bone-wrong nausea that doubles him over. 

He hears, vaguely, Tim exhorting Jon to _just press something_ and Jon shushing him. He looks up from behind his hair, limp and sweaty, ready to say something about bickering and is this really the time. He finds the two of them standing in front of the rows and rows of bright red canisters, heads bent slightly towards each other as they confer. Jon points and Tim, taller, reaches up to—

The corkscrew twists deeper and Martin can’t help crying out. “ _Son of a fucking_ —!”

“Got it,” Sasha says, except of course now she has to get it _out_ and fuckfuckfuckfuck. She shows him the impaled worm before she wipes it off, like that would make him feel better, and poises the bloody corkscrew for the next one. “Ready?”

“Aha!” says Jon, and flips a switch.

A chorus of death follows. The scream from the worm in Martin’s leg is muffled and brief, more a physical thing than anything else. The rest, though, the tens of thousands of other screaming things, go on for far too long. When they quiet, they do so as one, and then all that’s left is the sound of the fire alarm and their breathing. And Jon’s wheezing laughter. 

“We did it,” he says. “We did it, didn’t we? We killed them. We’re safe.”

“There’s still—” Sasha cuts herself off, looking from Jon to Martin, and the worm whose other end still lies limp over Martin’s skin. 

Tim picks it back up. “Yeah. We’re good, we’re safe.” He curls an arm around Jon’s narrow shoulders, doesn’t pull him in because Jon doesn’t like that, just keeps a solid weight there. “You alright, Martin?”

“Got off pretty light, I’d say, yeah.” With an apologetic smile to Sasha, he adds, “Sorry, could you…?”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry. Should get that out of you, huh?” 

“Please.”

This one, at least, is easier, already being dead and all, and not having burrowed as deep. Without the corkscrew pain to go with it, though, he can feel the sections sliding out of his flesh, one and two and— 

He swallows the pooling saliva in his mouth and decides to stop counting, stop thinking about anything at all, except the nice hot shower he very much looks forward to getting after this.

Once it’s out, Tim crushes it beneath his heel for good measure, dusting his hands off with that big grin of his that, now that Martin knows to look, doesn’t touch his eyes at all. It’s just slapped on and held there with the thinnest string. It definitely isn’t in his voice when he says, “You bleed like a human, anyway.”

But it’s enough that Tim is even making the appearance of it. Martin will take what he can. 

He fills them in on the broad strokes of everything else that went wrong while they sit there and wait for the CO2 to dissipate. Then it’s the fire brigade, the paramedics, an age in quarantine. 

They huddle together on the pavement to wait for Tim, who is inexplicably taking the longest despite not having had any worm marks. There’s no talking about it, just Jon’s half-hearted, “You should go home,” and neither Sasha nor Martin dignifying that with an answer. They sit there, Martin’s bandaged leg stretched out in front of him, Sasha barefoot because even sensible heels get too much, and cradle cups of truly shitty coffee in exhausted silence.

They only pay attention when a taxi eases to a stop just beyond the cordon. Elias Bouchard steps out as pressed and polished as if this were start of a regular day and not stupid o’clock in the morning.

He has the gall to smile when he sees them.

As Head of the Institute, Elias has no trouble getting through, of course. Martin feels Jon draw himself straight and stiff beside him, the three of them a line of tension and Jon the only one showing it. 

“I’m glad to see you’re all in one piece,” Elias says. His voice is all faux-concern, but his eyes are pale and dead and fixed on Martin. “I confess I...hadn’t taken this worm thing as seriously as I, perhaps, should have. My apologies, Jon.”

A beat passes. Then another. Jon doesn’t answer, just works at his jaw, so Martin answers for him. 

“Not like you could’ve known. Right?”

The urge to launch himself at that smug face is overwhelming. Sure, Sasha still has the corkscrew, but he’s sure he can do plenty of damage to Jonah Magnus’ ancient eldritch eyeballs without it. 

The press of warmth at either side of him is a good reminder of why he shouldn’t, however, and so Martin keeps his hands on his knees and does not try to gouge Magnus’ eyes out. He also manages not to try and touch or reassure Jon, which is rather more difficult. 

He doesn’t know if mind-reading would feel the same as when Elias pushed those images into his head. Probably not. Martin does his best to think rude and disgusting images in Jonah Magnus’ general direction anyway, just in case. Not because he thinks they’d stop the wanker from being in his head, but because if the wanker _is_ in his head, he deserves it.

Elias’ smile widens. “Even so. The Institute is my responsibility, as is the safety of everyone in it. Now then. You all look very tired, and it seems you’ve been cleared by the friendly people in the hazmat suits. Why don’t you head on home?”

“We will,” Sasha says. “Just waiting on Tim. We prefer to stay together, after all this.”

“Understandable. After a worm infestation on that scale, I would hate to see what else might be out there.”

Jon laughs. Just once. It’s a horrible, terrified bark, and Elias’ brow furrows. He lets the smile fall, looks to Sasha like he’s actually _concerned_ for Jon’s wellbeing and expects her to share it. 

“Maybe take some time off as well. A week, at least. I imagine it will take that long to get this all cleaned up anyway, and it’s clear you all need the rest.”

“Thanks,” Sasha says. She reaches over Martin to cover Jon’s hand, not even looking at him, like it’s the easiest and most normal thing in the world. “It’s just been a long day. If you need a statement about what happened—”

Elias waves her off. “It can wait until you get back. In a week, I promise I’ll pester you about all of the details, but not before. And, ah, Martin? If you need more time, do let me know. That leg looks painful.”

“Had worse,” Martin shoots back. “No need to worry about me.”

“So I see.”

Just because he has to get another _Seeing_ line in before he goes. The little shit. 

Once he’s finally gone, Jon sags. He curls in on himself and the hand he has clasped in Sasha’s and, hanging his head like that, Martin can see the first knob of his spine past the gaping of his shirt collar and—Jon wouldn’t normally be considered a small man. Narrow-shouldered, yes, but he’s of average height and holds himself in a way that demands space and attention. Now, though… Now, he’s small. Fragile.

Not his Jon, but still Jon. 

Martin lifts his hand and hesitates, his fingers curling in—because this Jon wouldn’t want anything to do with him now, because this Jon doesn’t trust him, is frightened of him maybe, wouldn’t find him a comfort. 

But. He’s also sitting pressed against Martin’s side, so. Maybe?

Gingerly, Martin places his palm on Jon’s shoulder blade instead of the back of his neck, like he would’ve done for _his_ Jon. That’s a good neutral place, he figures. Jon tenses, but only for a moment, and makes no protest, so he lets his hand rest more fully, with what he hopes is a grounding weight. 

His head still hanging low, Jon turns his face a little to peer up at Martin.

“You’re going to need somewhere to stay, aren’t you? The, ah...the Archives are hardly suitable anymore. And - and you mentioned it could be dangerous for you now that you’ve—what happened to Leitner, I mean—”

Get it together, Blackwood. Not your Jon. 

Martin swallows past the tightness in his throat and says, trying and failing not to sound fond, “I think I could probably manage Elias, Jon. But…I suppose you’ll want to - to keep a closer eye on me, after...all this, yeah? Make sure I’m not turning into a Flesh Hive or - or, y’know, not secretly an evil clown or anything.”

“What?” 

And that furrow of his brow, the confused blink, fuck if it doesn’t make Martin’s chest clench.

“I mean to say, I understand? And...it’s fine? Not fine, I mean, just—none of you have any reason to trust me right now, and anyway there’s still so much more to explain and go through. So if...you were going to say I should stay somewhere you can see me, then yes. Alright.” Martin pulls on a smile he hopes might be reassuring. “Plus, I mean, yeah, I don’t much fancy staying here with the worms, even if, by some miracle, document storage was spared.”

Jon straightens up with a sudden, “Oh!” which slides Martin’s hand off. He decides not to push his luck and pulls it back. “Your things. I...can’t remember, I _think_ we closed the door behind us. If we did, then your, ah...Well, barring the items we took out. Those were...in my office.” 

Jon winces. He _looks_ apologetic. But, note, he isn’t saying the actual words. Sasha isn’t even apologetic, though. She just lifts the straps of Martin’s backpack from where it’s settled beside her on the pavement then lets them flop down again.

“There’s this. I mostly just swept what was on Jon’s desk into it, no real idea what I got. I guess we can find out together later.”

He wants to ask about the photo, but...If it wasn’t saved, he’d rather get to process that in private. And at least there’s still the tape in his pocket. 

“Later, yes. Anyway, what I was thinking… Well, you could stay at mine, but that still leaves Sasha and Tim by themselves, and. And that’s not safe.” 

“What’re you suggesting, Jon?” 

Because the direction this is headed seems too indulgent for him to say out loud, and Martin has learned not to trust indulgence and comfort. 

“For us to, ah...stay together? All of us? For the duration of our leave, at least. As I said, i-it’s safer, and easier for us to make plans besides. I’m not sure I understand why Elias is giving us this reprieve—perhaps he’s merely giving _himself_ room to, ah...review things, as it were—but whatever the reason, we’d be foolish not to take advantage of it.” 

“We can bully Tim into letting us take over his flat, then,” says Sasha. “He’s probably the only one with enough space. Dibs on the first shower.”

Really? As easy as that? 

Martin doesn’t think it’s his right to protest that anymore, jokingly or not. Sasha’s expression isn’t particularly joke-friendly right now and...yeah, there’s still a ton to talk through. It's not like everything's just magically going to be fine now. There might be a hundred new problems arising from them all sharing the same space for...presumably at least a week and if he's being completely honest with himself, Martin knows Sasha is only agreeing so she can keep watch on him, even if that isn’t Jon’s intent.

But Martin still chances saying, “Dibs on the second,” and is a little pleased by Sasha warning that she doesn’t guarantee any leftover hot water. Not quite the sparkling banter of Assistants’ Night Out, and maybe they’ll never get to _that_ again, but she's not shutting him down entirely either. 

More importantly, it's still her. She's alive. They’re all alive, they’re well, and they’re—

Not his.

 _Can’t_ be his.

His Sasha and Tim are dead, gone, and his Jon is in a Changed world, but they don't need to be _his_ Jon and Sasha and Tim for him to love them as well. He might just be an interloper, and he might be leaving them eventually, but… For now. While he's here. He can help keep them safe. And that will just have to be enough.

END PART I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so many thanks to rustkid and abbyleaf101 for betaing this monstrosity and helping me make sense of the ending.
> 
> For the sake of building up more of a buffer, I will start posting Part II on June 14th, after which we'll be resuming our weekly update schedule. In the meantime, feel free to come say hi on tumblr @evanescentjasmine.
> 
> Oh and also, Eid Mubarak to all who celebrate!
> 
> _Edited 29/5/2020 to reflect reactions to some aspects of MAG 92 which I'd forgotten. Many thanks to netty_fics for pointing it out!_


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